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Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship
We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!
Tune in for excitement!
Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.
Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture.
Start your entrepreneurial journey
Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.
Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.
We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.
Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.
Student opportunities
- Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
- Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
- Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
- Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
- Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.
Find your path
Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?
Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.
CMU faculty tackle breast cancer recurrence
by
Sanjna Jassi
CMU faculty members collaborate on effort to block breast cancer recurrence after chemotherapy.
Two Central Michigan University faculty members are collaborating on research that could lead to preventing breast cancer from recurring once it has gone into remission.
Stave Kohtz was doing research on that issue in the College of Medicine when he learned about biologist Xantha Karp's work with tiny worms called C. elegans in her lab in the College
of Science and Engineering.
Her research includes the dormant state, called dauer, the worms enter when exposed to stress. They come out of it when the stressor is gone. She has been studying the genes that control the fate of the worms' cells during dormancy.
Kohtz wondered if breast cancer cells go through a similar process after undergoing the stress of chemotherapy, and if so, is there a connection.
It turns out the connection may be a protein called UNK.
A little manifestation of UNK in the original tumor meant a short disease-free interval, a lot of UNK meant a long disease-free interval, he said.
"It's almost like an internal alarm clock that is set at some point early on, such as when the tumor is treated, and that determines the length of remission," he said.
One function of UNK in normal cells, and presumably in cancer cells, is to keep certain other genes turned off. The details of this process are still being studied, Karp said.
The research teams are working together to identify the genes that UNK turns off in dormant cancer cells and that come back on when the cancers recur.
Once those "targets" are found, drugs can be formulated to turn them off and prevent cancer's recurrence.
Their work is being funded with a one-year $171,000 grant from the Elsa U. Pardee Foundation in Midland, Michigan.
"I think our chances are very high that we will find something that will move us closer to our goal," Karp said.
"Best-case scenario is we find a very clear drug target that affects the breast cancer cells."
Signature Programs
Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship
Explore special opportunities to learn new skills and travel the world.
Compete & Win
New Venture Challenge 2025
Present your venture and win BIG at the New Venture Challenge.
Build your skills
Workshops and events
Boost your entrepreneurial skills through our workshops, mentor meetups and pitch competitions.
Develop your ideas
IDEA Den
Learn about the entrepreneurship makerspace on campus in Grawn Hall.
Ready, Set, Pitch!
Make-A-Pitch 2024
Present a 2-minute pitch at the Make-A-Pitch Competition and you could win prizes and bragging rights!
Meet Mentors
Mentorship and support
Connect with mentors and faculty who are here to support the next generation of CMU entrepreneurs.
Support students
Make an impact
Are you a CMU alum looking to support CMU student entrepreneurs? Learn how you can support or donate to the Entrepreneurship Institute.
View our programming newsletter
Alumni give back to students through mentorship, real-world experiences
The Wakeling Gendron Entrepreneurial Scholars program wrapped its first cohort this academic year.
Students compete to win cash prizes at the New Venture Challenge
Pitched 40 ventures at NMV Challenge, Friday, April 19, CMU. Judges awarded $100,000 in cash prizes.
Wakeling Gendron Scholars make a life-changing trip to Texas
Wakeling and Gendron Scholars attended SXSW in Texas, meeting industry leaders and gaining entrepreneurial insights.
Business barriers lead CMU students to a new venture
Justin Ashman and Philip Mundt won Central Michigan University's New Venture Competition with their 3-D printing operation, Form Further.
