Sometimes, researchers need a helping hand to close the distance between a brilliant idea and a commercially viable product, service, or business. That’s where the University of Iowa’s GAP Funding Program comes in.

For the first time since it was immersed in floodwater seven years ago, the University of Iowa Memorial Union ground floor will be open to the public. University and local officials will commemorate the re-opening of the 83,000-square-foot space with a ribbon-cutting ceremony followed by self-guided tours on June 3.

A miniature version of the University of Iowa’s advanced driving simulator will participate in a clinical trial later this year to assess a patient’s driving ability after cataract surgery.

A multi-center study led by infection control experts with UI Health Care finds that implementing a series of simple interventions before surgery can reduce the rate of surgical-site infections by up to 40 percent.

As the UI moves forward with the Iowa Board of Regents’ TIER project, campus leaders are committed to keeping colleagues informed. Here are the latest developments across business cases.

Radar technology from the UI will help a new NASA mission look for the building blocks of life on a distant moon.

A UI study shows that chronic exposure to a toxin made by staph bacteria produces in rabbits the hallmark symptoms of Type 2 diabetes, including insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. The findings suggest that eliminating staph bacteria or neutralizing the toxins might have potential for preventing or treating the disease.

Ever since joining her middle school mock trial team, Dubuque native Heather Jackson has practiced her trade with the hope of earning a law degree that would, one day, help her use her passion for argument to serve Iowans as a public defender.

An UI study finds states gain little when dropping adult dental coverage. Researchers say adults in California made 1,800 more hospital visits annually for dental care after losing the benefit. California spent $2.9 million each year, 68 percent more before eliminating the benefit. Results in the journal Health Affairs.

The University of Iowa has teamed up with the National Science Foundation to establish a program for accelerating commercialization of technologies developed by student and faculty inventors and entrepreneurs, especially those developed by women.

Leaders for the University of Iowa’s OneIT project have prepared draft project charters which address the university’s four information technology business cases related to the TIER initiative. The campus is encouraged to provide feedback via two avenues.

UI neuroscientist Andrew Pieper and colleagues at three other universities, show that bone marrow transplant does not rescue mouse models of Rett syndrome, a severe neurological disease that affects very young girls. The findings directly contradict seemingly promising results published in 2012, which initiated a clinical trial for human patients.