A key component in Tennessee's economic success is its roster of colleges and universities. The Volunteer State is home to 51 public colleges, universities and technology centers that collectively educate 220,000 degree-seeking students. Thirty-six private independent institutions educate another 65,000 students.

The state's institutions of higher education – including the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University – are known globally for their research efforts, annually devoting millions of dollars to that cause. For example, in 2010 the University of Tennessee committed $280 million toward research endeavors.

Much of the research generated on the state's university campuses is finding its way into the commercial marketplace.

“Our success stories include a researcher who recently invented a stretchable fabric that is now used in baby diapers, and the fabric today is in billions of disposable diapers that are sold every day throughout the world,” says Joy Fisher, director of business startups for the University of Tennessee Research Foundation.

The foundation provides assistance and resources to the research activities of faculty, staff and students of the institutions in the University of Tennessee system – UT's flagship Knoxville campus, including its Institute of Agriculture and Graduate School of Medicine, and campuses in Chattanooga, Martin, Tullahoma and Memphis.

Burn Body Fat

Fisher says the foundation, based in Knoxville, works with professors and scientists in the university system to evaluate their inventions, ideas and discoveries, then tries to market and license the technology to companies that may be able to use the technology in their businesses.

“We also take care of patents, copyrights and trademarks, and also look to form startup companies if the technology has many aspects to it,” she says. “One such startup getting ready to launch is Nutraceutical Discoveries, which developed a product called Innutria. It is a food ingredient that blends naturally occurring nutrients, and burns body fat when added to food or beverages.”

Read 180

At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, faculty members across all disciplines received more than $500 million in external funding for research in 2009. In 2010, university staff suggested 133 invention ideas.

A recent success story includes a Read 180 product developed by a Vanderbilt education professor. Read 180 is sold by Scholastic publishers – the same company that published the Harry Potter series – and helps struggling readers raise their reading achievement levels, says Janis Elsner, associate director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization. “Read 180 helps middle school kids who haven't really learned how to read, and turns their lives around. It's a fantastic education breakthrough, and Vanderbilt still receives royalties from that product,” she says.

Combat Brain Disorders

Alan Bentley, assistant vice chancellor at the VU Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization, says Vanderbilt has also recently established a Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery that is researching ways to combat brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and Fragile X syndrome.

Vandy currently has three neuroscience drug-licensing deals in the works with pharmaceutical companies, but Bentley says it takes time to make such deals because drugs must be monitored for quite awhile before reaching the marketplace.

“Drug discovery, personalized medicine, biostatistics, prosthetics, engineering, education – Vanderbilt is involved in research for those disciplines and many more,” Bentley says. “The university is really accelerating our research efforts. That includes licensing technologies to several existing industries, plus we’re looking to be more collaborative on innovative projects with many established companies.”