When it comes to keeping smiles on the faces of Ohio’s medical industry leaders, Governor-elect John Kasich’s predecessor did him a big favor. It’s called Ohio Third Frontier.

Chris Coburn is the captain of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, the corporate venturing arm of the Cleveland Clinic. The 53-year-old fitness enthusiast and his crew have an important job: nurturing inventions that emerge from several thousand scientists and doctors at the nation’s top heart hospital, and guiding them through a years-long process to commercial viability, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron has received a $2.6 million Ohio Third Frontier grant for biomedical sensor research and commercialization. The grant is from the revamped Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering at Cleveland State University.

Who would have thought a smart nanotechnology material that keeps aircraft and wind turbine blades free from ice could help glaucoma patients? Khalid Lafdi and Ed Timm did. At the University of Dayton, the two used Lafdi’s invention of “fuzzy fiber” to design a drain tube for glaucoma patients.

Credit for this blog post should really go to William Hoffman, an editor and writer with the University of Minnesota medical school and author of “The Stem Cell Dilemma.”Hoffman e-mailed me after reading my post on how the Democratic candidates for governor rank on biosciences. He specifically focused on the idea that Minnesota’s high taxes [...]

An Aurora, Ohio subsidiary of GE Healthcare is teaming with clinicians and researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Ohio State University to find better ways to take magnetic resonance images of children.GEHC Coils Inc. in Aurora — the former USA Instruments Inc. — will use a $1 million Ohio Third Frontier grant to [...]

Tim Mulcahy’s eyes lit up as the thought suddenly seized him.“Here’s what we can propose,” said Mulcahy, vice president of research at the University of Minnesota. “Perhaps the university is too risk averse in our assessment” of potential startups.“We will make any of those technologies and potential companies that we pass on immediately available for [...]

The Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center incubator building is beginning to fill up.The $19-million, 50,000-square-foot building on the southern edge of the Cleveland Clinic’s main campus opened quietly in April. The goal of the Ohio Third Frontier-backed incubator is to house and feed fledgling companies that are developing products and services to diagnose or treat cardiovascular [...]

OrthoHelix Surgical Designs Inc. topped off a recent $14 million investor fundraise late Wednesday afternoon with a $1 million Ohio Third Frontier grant.Third Frontier is Ohio’s $2 billion project to develop the state’s economy by investing in technologies in five industry clusters, including biomedical. In May, voters approved issuing $700 million in [...]

The Ohio Third Frontier Commission has awarded more than $3 million to entrepreneur-support organizations that provide services and investments to startup technology companies.The grant awards were made under the Third Frontier Pre-Seed Fund Initiative and Entrepreneurial Signature Program.– Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber was awarded $2 million for its Southwest Ohio Signature Program: The Next Generation. [...]