UAMS program keys on entrepreneurship

FAYETTEVILLE — A new entrepreneurship program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences will partner post-doctoral trainees in Little Rock with teams of UA-Fayetteville business students to bring ideas to the marketplace.

The first four trainees in the two-year program’s first cohort will be paid $50,000 to $55,000 annually through National Institutes of Health grant money received by the UAMS Translational Research Institute, said Leslie Taylor, UAMS vice chancellor for communications and marketing.

The trainees — Samir Jenkins, Astha Malhotra, Melody Penning and Aaron Storey — have health-science research interests that include nanomaterials and 3-D printing. The 15-credit Health Science Innovation & Entrepreneurship program has trainees taking UA-Fayetteville distance education courses and working with Master of Business Administration students.

At medical schools, “there aren’t a huge number of these entrepreneurship programs, and I think Arkansas is doing the right thing and getting in on the early stage of this,” said Ross McKinney, chief scientific officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Taylor said UAMS will retain some commercialization rights, per the university’s policies.

McKinney said that while schools may have “something of a profit motive” with such programs, it’s also “good for the institution’s reputation to be seen as innovating and making a difference in patient care.”