Gov. Ted Strickland and Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut donned their high-tech marketing hats Friday, touting the state’s leadership in biomedical and health care innovation by announcing centers of excellence at 14 universities.

The Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron has struck a strategic partnership with Cleveland orthopedic device testing and design firm Orthopaedic Research Laboratories to discover, develop and commercialize novel technologies and solutions that advance orthopedic care.

MedWish International still is collecting medical supplies for victims of the Haitian earthquake while Ohio doctors, nurses and other medical professionals volunteer to help.

Technology transfer — moving research out of institutions and into companies that can develop and market products with it — was a healthy enterprise nationwide in fiscal 2007. Northeast Ohio institutions were more successful than those elsewhere in the state at leveraging research spending with licensing revenues.