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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.

      Xantha Karp discusses her research on how to keep stem cells healthy

      by Henry Heller

      Xantha Karp, PhD in Genetics and Development received a NIH grant in 2023 for her research titled “Regulation of Adult Cell Fate by FOXO and RNA Binding Proteins”. The point of her research is to understand how stem cells stay healthy during long periods of rest. 

      Stem cells are the cells in our bodies that divide continuously  or develop into specialized cells like red blood cells or white blood cells that fightinfection. For some periods of time our cells do not need to continuously divide and so they just stay waiting, this is called quiescence. The question Karp is asking is how do stem cells not change during quiescence, what keeps them the same if our body is constantly adjusting and changing with the challenges around us? 

      Karp’s team researches this question by using a microscopic model animal called C. elegans. They use these worms that enter into a highly stress –esistant, hibernation-like state called dauer and that stay dormant until the condition changes around them. In searching for genes that regulate the dauer state, Karp has discovered two genes in the worm that are similar to human genes, one being a FOXO gene which is a type of gene that can control whether other genes change or “turn on and off”. Another gene named DCP-66 has also been found that may more directly regulate a cell’s fate . 

      Karp believes that this research will tell us how developmental processes are regulated within stem cells, during a state of quiescence. They predict their findings in the model system will be applicable to understanding the regulation of human stem cells.  

      This story is brought to you by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

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