A.E. Araiza / arizona daily star

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These students didn't plan for any boring class project. What if, one UA student group is proposing, hair loss could be prevented in cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy?

Or, what if, another proposed, patients who used home-oxygen therapy could have a lightweight device that consumes less power and gives those people more mobility?

The two groups were among four who presented their projects Wednesday night at Tucson's Manning House as part of the UA's professional science master's program.

The program started seven years ago as a way to prepare students for scientific careers in industry or for professional careers in management.

The four teams, with about 15 students total, worked on business plans they've "created from scratch," said Alaina G. Levine, the director of special projects at UA's College of Science, who administers the class Topics in Entrepreneurship for Scientists.

The two other groups that presented Wednesday include one that wants to improve advertising algorithms for Google and another that wants to develop high-tech materials for fast and sensitive biological analysis.

Professional science master's degree programs are gaining support from the federal government. This year, Congress passed the America Competes Act, which the UA said gives $37 million to such programs in the United States.

Supporters say this is the first time the government has given federal dollars to support master's programs in the sciences.

"This is important because most science students who graduate have blinders on, and all they see are research and papers," UA special projects director Levine said.

Many scientists, she said, may underestimate the significance of marketing and sales.

Alicia Reeves, a former program student and a keynote speaker Wednesday evening, heads a startup company that is aiming to reduce testing time for dangerous E. coli bacteria to a fraction of what it takes now.

Her firm, Innovis Technologies, was one of three biotech groups that presented their technologies in October to a meeting of Desert Tech Investors LLC, which is working with UA to invest $400,000 in research on university innovations with "high commercial potential."

The UA is one of more than 60 universities across the country that offers such a master's program.

Its program stands out, Levine said, because it has one of the most successful PSMs in the country, and it has a high percentage of Hispanic and American Indian students.

"We're creating a change in the mind-set of science-based students," Levine said, "such that they understand that their science has value in the commercial marketplace."