University of Arkansas Team Wins $20,000 at Tri-State Governors Cup Competition

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Sam Walls III, president of the Arkansas Capital Corp. Group, congratulates BioBotic Solutions team members Michael Iseman (far left), Kelley Coakley and Rachel Zweig. On the right are team advisers Jeff Amerine and Carol Reeves.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – BioBotic Solutions, an undergraduate business plan team led by University of Arkansas honors students, won second place in a field of six top teams in the Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Governors Cup competition, held May 22-23 in Las Vegas. The business plan competition draws the top teams from universities in Arkansas, Nevada, and Oklahoma.

BioBotic Solutions earned $20,000, capping a competition season in which the team took home $71,000 in cash and an additional $26,000 pledged for in-kind social media marketing, legal and accounting services.

The team previously won the grand prize at the Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Business Plan Competition at Texas Christian University, first place in the G60 Elevator Pitch Contest in Bentonville and scored second-place wins at the Nebraska Global Venture Competition and the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Competition in Arkansas.

The flurry of awards has drawn national attention: Bloomberg Businessweek recently listed BioBiotic Solutions as one of “Nine Hot New B-School Startups.”

“It’s been a remarkable year for this team, no doubt about it,” said Jeff Amerine, associate vice provost for research who coached members of the team in his honors undergraduate New Venture Development class. “The better part of the story is that this team brought together the University of Arkansas, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Hendrix College in a true multidisciplinary, multi-campus effort that is moving forward as a real venture.”

The BioBotic Solutions team has developed a business plan based on a container and robotic arm that automate tissue handling, one of the few remaining areas in a pathology lab that require a human touch. The concept, which is based on existing technology, would decrease pathology lab errors from 1 percent to 0.005 percent and cut processing time from two to three minutes down to 20 seconds, freeing up pathology assistants to conduct more productive lab work.

The idea for the new technology originated with Dr. Shree Sharma, a renal pathologist at UAMS who provided advice and mentoring for the team throughout the year.

Carol Reeves, associate vice provost for entrepreneurship at the U of A, also mentored the team, and Jeff Wolchok, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, led the senior design class in which students created a prototype container using a 3-D printer. Maria Driesel, an exchange student from Germany in Amerine’s class, also assisted in advising the team.

Team leader Michael Iseman, who recently graduated with an honors degree in finance from the Sam M. Walton College of Business, said: “This was by far the highest level of competition that I’ve seen, with the most difficult questions that we’ve received from judges. It was real-world, venture-capital-related feedback, and will be very helpful as we move this forward from an academic exercise to a real business venture.”

Iseman has accepted a position with Cerner Corp., a global supplier of health care information technology solutions, but plans to continue “working on BioBotics full-time nights and weekends until further notice.”

Other team members also plan to continue work on BioBotics Solutions. They include:

•  Kelley Coakley, who recently completed a honors biomedical engineering degree in the College of Engineering
•  Aundria Eoff, who recently graduated with an honors biomedical engineering degree in the College of Engineering
• Rachel Zweig, who is majoring in chemistry and mathematics at Hendrix College.