MTU's Office of Innovation and Commercialization

Name: MTU's Office of Innovation and Commercialization
Address: Lakeshore Center, Houghton, MI, 49931, US
Telephone: +19064873458

Home
United States
Houghton, MI
MTU's Office of Innovation and Commercialization

Call Directions Website Contact the business

Capitalizing on research, engineering solutions, and creating opportunities.

10/19/2026

Seeking a grant that can move your technology forward? Check out the MTRAC Grant. We can help! Click Here https://buff.ly/e8G4T5C

10/01/2026

Planning a research project with commercial potential? Now is the time to start preparing. The MTRAC Innovation Hub for Advanced Materials at Michigan Technological University will open its 2027 grant cycle on January 1, 2027.

Researchers interested in applying don't have to wait until January to get started. Connect with our team now to discuss project fit and begin preparing a competitive proposal.

Learn more about MTU's MTRAC Advanced Materials Hub here https://buff.ly/lNdHvHH

09/28/2026

MTRAC Impact: Where Are They Now?
What happens when your technology could potentially serve multiple industries? It sounds like an ideal commercialization opportunity, but it raises an important question: Where do you start? Michigan Tech researcher Dr. Yoke Khin Yap and his 2025 MTRAC Advanced Materials team have been working to answer that question with their Non-Toxic Colloidal Quantum Dots project.

Their commercialization journey has involved more than laboratory research. The team participated in I-Corps customer discovery programs, exploring potential industry segments and talking with prospective customers and stakeholders to better understand where their technology could create the greatest value. That process helped the researchers test assumptions about potential markets and de-risk not only the technology, but also the emerging business model.

The team’s timing proved especially valuable. In 2026, NSF launched Quantum+X, a program designed to accelerate the adoption and commercialization of quantum-related discoveries by connecting researchers with potential early adopters across multiple scientific and commercial sectors. Dr. Yap’s team is attempting to participate, which will provide another opportunity to explore potential applications and markets for their technology.

One of the most important lessons in technology commercialization is discovering who doesn’t need your technology can be just as valuable as discovering who does (the product market fit). Every customer interview provides information. Every assumption tested reduces uncertainty and every step helps move promising Michigan research closer to real-world impact.

Congratulations to Dr. Yap and his team on their continued progress! This is what translational research looks like.

Supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), Michigan’s MTRAC program helps university researchers bridge the gap between promising discoveries and real-world applications.

09/24/2026

MTRAC Impact: Where Are They Now?
A successful technology commercialization program develops more than technology. It develops people. That’s one of the stories emerging from the 2025 MTRAC Advanced Materials project, Wearable Non-Enzymatic Sensor for Continuous Sweat Glucose Monitoring.

Led by Dr. Yixin Liu, with co-investigator Dr. Smitha Rao and Dr. Rourke Sylvain, the team is advancing a non-enzymatic sensing platform toward wearable, non-invasive glucose monitoring in sweat. But another important outcome is the development of the researchers behind it. During the project, Rourke Sylvain completed his Ph.D. while playing a central role in advancing the technology and its commercialization. The team made substantial progress in prototyping the device and conducted extensive customer discovery to help define a path toward commercialization, including identifying promising initial market opportunities.

We often measure commercialization impact by counting new companies, jobs created, patents secured, technologies licensed, and follow-on funding. But those numbers don’t capture the entire impact. When graduate researchers participate in translational research, they gain experience beyond the laboratory. They learn how to identify potential customers, understand their needs, explore market opportunities, and think about what it takes to move a discovery toward real-world application.

MTRAC isn’t just an investment in promising technologies. It’s also an investment in Michigan’s future innovation workforce. For Michigan Tech’s wearable glucose-sensing team, both are happening simultaneously; a promising technology is advancing while the researchers behind it are developing the commercialization skills and entrepreneurial experience needed to help move innovation from the laboratory toward the marketplace.

Congratulations to Dr. Liu, Dr. Rao and Dr. Sylvain on their continued momentum! This is what translational research looks like.

Supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), Michigan's MTRAC program helps university researchers bridge the gap between promising discoveries and real-world applications.

09/21/2026

MTRAC Impact: Where Are They Now?
From university research to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, that's the kind of progress Michigan's MTRAC program is designed to help make possible. University of Michigan’s researcher, Dr. Robert Hovden, recently completed his 2025 MTRAC Advanced Materials project, “Achieving Liquid Helium TEM for Atomic Imaging for Next Generation Electronics.”

The technology addresses a difficult challenge in transmission electron microscopy: cooling materials to ultralow temperatures while maintaining the extraordinary stability required to image individual atoms. Since the project began, the technology has achieved some impressive milestones; Research demonstrating ultracold, atomic-resolution TEM was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Subsequent work demonstrated sub-angstrom atomic imaging at temperatures around 20 kelvin.

University of Michigan startup h-Bar Instruments is commercializing the technology. An h-Bar system has been successfully installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, bringing the technology into a leading national research facility. h-Bar received a $1.25 million NSF SBIR Phase II award to continue advancing and commercializing its liquid-helium TEM technology, following earlier Phase I funding.

Congratulations to Dr. Hovden and your start-up, h-Bar Instruments team on their continued progress! This is what technology translation looks like.

Supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), Michigan's MTRAC program helps university researchers bridge the gap between promising discoveries and real-world applications.

09/18/2026

MTRAC Impact: Where Are They Now?
What happens after an MTRAC project ends? For Michigan Tech researcher Dr. Timothy Eisele, the momentum continues. Eisele recently completed his 2025 MTRAC Advanced Materials project, “Bioextraction of Nickel from Recycled Batteries,” exploring biological approaches to recovering valuable nickel from recycled battery materials.

Now, his research into sustainable metals recovery is attracting significant federal investment. Eisele recently received $1,035,309 from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a bioleaching process that could transform low-cost, low-grade iron ore waste into valuable feedstock for ironmaking. The award follows another recent $700,000 DOE award supporting his research into biological production of high-grade manganese dioxide from low-grade sources. That's more than $1.7 million in recent DOE funding supporting innovative approaches to metals extraction and recovery.

The work is particularly timely. Nickel and other critical materials are essential to batteries, energy technologies, steelmaking, and U.S. manufacturing, yet their global supply chains remain highly concentrated. Indonesia, the world's dominant nickel producer has significantly reduced nickel ore production quotas in 2026.

Finding new ways to recover critical materials from recycled batteries, low-grade ores, mine wastes, and other secondary sources could help diversify supply while reducing waste and environmental impacts. Eisele's work is also advancing toward commercialization through Impetra Metals, his startup focused on sustainable metals recovery.

Congratulations to Dr. Eisele and his team on the continued momentum! This is what translational research looks like.

Supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), Michigan's MTRAC program helps university researchers bridge the gap between promising discoveries and real-world applications.

09/09/2026

Remember our 2025 MTRAC Advanced Materials teams?
When we introduced the 2025 MTRAC Grant Awardees, we said we were excited to follow their innovative technologies and “the real-world impact they’re poised to make.” Well... a lot has happened since then.

Our 2025 teams have completed their MTRAC projects—but their commercialization journeys didn't stop there. From obtaining additional funding, starting businesses, creating jobs, and identifying opportunities to advance their technologies, these teams have been busy.

Over the next few weeks, we'll revisit each of our 2025 MTRAC teams and share where they are now and how their progress demonstrates something important: How a relatively small investment in translational research can be the catalyst for a much larger impact.

Stay tuned for our MTRAC Impact: Where Are They Now? series.

MTRAC Advanced Materials at Michigan Technological University is supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC).

08/26/2026

Are you interested in taking your innovative idea, technology, or process to the market? Entrepreneurially minded students, faculty, staff, alumni, and local community teams are invited to join the next Great Lakes Region NSF I-Corps Hub cohort. Click Here

08/20/2026

08/17/2026

Address

Lakeshore Center
Houghton, MI
49931

Telephone

+19064873458

Website

https://www.mtu.edu/research/innovation/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when MTU's Office of Innovation and Commercialization posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to MTU's Office of Innovation and Commercialization:

Show All