HEALTH SCIENCES a pedaling breakthrough

BY TRACY STAEDTER

In 2014, Dr. Sheila Schindler-Ivens, PT ’89, was investigating how a person’s brain adapts after a stroke to control leg movements when she happened upon a potential rehabilitation breakthrough.

Because standard pedal trainers with fixed cranks wouldn’t give them the data they needed, the associate professor of physical therapy and her team created a trainer with a split crank that allowed study participants to pedal each leg independently. Experiments conducted with the device toppled assumptions about stroke patients who have a partially paralyzed leg: It turned out this paretic leg had more muscle function than previously thought. And if resistance or assistance could be calibrated for each leg — and the paretic leg compelled to do its share of the work — that leg could gain in strength and function.

It was a revelation for Schindler-Ivens, suggesting the device, if broadly available, could help physical therapists everywhere improve the mobility of stroke patients, while also reducing the physically demanding treatments therapists undertake to achieve positive outcomes.

The professor pursued — and received — patents for the device. And ready or not, she entered the world of entrepreneurship. “You don’t get these chances every day,” she says.

Encouraged by Dr. Kalpa Vithalani, Marquette’s executive director of technology transfer, Schindler-Ivens participated in two commercialization fellowships, where she learned how to identify her market, create a business plan and pitch her technology, which she named CUped for compels use of paralyzed limbs during a form of pedaling.

Then in October, she won the Emerging Company Award in the Healthcare Innovation Pitch competition sponsored by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin. That’s a vote of confidence and morale booster as she makes her pitch for capital investment needed to bring CUped to market. “It’s the most impactful thing I’ve contributed,” she says. “It is the portion of my work most likely to make a difference for people with stroke.”

NURSING nursing vision

This is an exciting time for the College of Nursing and its new permanent dean, Dr. Jill Guttormson, who was previously acting dean.

Renovations are underway for the college’s future home and a $31 million gift from Terry (Hall) Jackson, Nurs ’87, and Darren R. Jackson, Bus Ad ’86, is supporting a strategic plan that addresses ongoing nursing shortages through continued enrollment expansion with a focus on diversity, leadership and community engagement.

“As a nurse, I know that what happens in health care settings is only about 10 percent of what makes people healthy,’’ Guttormson says. “We have some amazing communityengaged researchers in the college, and that really is the future for improving the health of our communities and our national population.’’

— Mary Schmitt Boyer, Jour ’77

STRATEGIC PLANNING going beyond

A decade has passed since a visionary strategic plan called the Marquette community to push itself Beyond

Boundaries, through progress on themes such as “Research in Action” and “Formation of Hearts and Minds.” “We have transformed our university,” President Michael R. Lovell says. “But the landscape of higher education has changed drastically; now is the time to refocus. A new strategic plan — one rooted in our mission and aligned with the campus master plan and Time to Rise campaign — will help ensure that Marquette delivers a transformative Catholic, Jesuit education to our students for decades to come.” Planning efforts are underway; the new strategic plan is expected to be unveiled in early 2024.

— Christopher Stolarski