SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University is not known for its research.

When Patrick Mather was being recruited to come to SU from Case Western Reserve, a big research school in Ohio, his first thought was, "Syracuse. What do they do?"

Compared with Case Western and other universities where research is the bread and butter, SU's research funding was "minuscule," Mather said. Going there was a risk, he said.

But Mather took the job as the director of the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute at SU.

That was 2007, and the gamble has paid off. Since then, research dollars coming into the institute have increased by 20 percent every year, Mather said. The products under development are straight out of sci-fi: fake tissue that could be used for stents that dissolves in the body; metal that can heal itself when scratched or cracked; plastic sheaths to hold broken bones together under the skin that dissolves as the bone heals.

The institute is a bright spot at a university that turned to community engagement and development under former Chancellor Nancy Cantor. By 2011, the research dollars and credibility dwindled enough that the university left the prestigious Association of American Universities before it was kicked out.

That year, SU was number 186 out of 200 in a national ranking of colleges for the total amount spent on research. It was just behind the Lafayette campus of the University of Louisiana and the University of Akron.

At the time, professors spoke out, criticizing Cantor for diminishing the university's reputation by diverting money away from classrooms and research, and lowering admissions standards. David Bennett, a history professor, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that SU was on a "road to nowhere."

Chancellor Kent Syverud, who is just finishing up his first full year at the helm of SU, is trying to reshape the school's finances and mission. From 2012 to 2014, SU began each year working off the previous year's losses. 2014's operating loss was $13 million. Syverud has said he wants to put the university, and each school, back in the black. One of the paths he sees for doing that is increasing academic research, along with the money and status that come with it.

The renewed focus on research has become a talking point for Syverud and university administrators at every opportunity. When the university offered buyouts to staff this week, it offered research as its reason: "To advance our standing as a premier, student-focused, international research university that attracts great students, faculty and staff, we must make smart choices about where we allocate our resources," reads the letter to staff.

In a May interview, Syverud said research is the path to ensuring that Syracuse University continues to thrive. It is refocusing on research at a challenging time nationally: Federal research money has decreased in recent years and competition for that money has increased.

"The best thing for all of the communities in Central New York that Syracuse University can do is be a thriving international research university," Syverud said in a May interview. "By being a thriving international research university we will create growth, we will create jobs and enable the benefits of that economic growth to be felt by governments, by communities, by nonprofits."

Making a bright spot on a dim landscape

As total research dollars to Syracuse University decreased, the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute was quietly digging out its toehold in the bio-tech world.

During SBI's first full year in 2008, it had $2.8 million in research funding and 32 research proposals submitted. By 2014, both numbers, while not overwhelming, had nearly doubled: the institute had $5.3 million in funding and researchers had submitted 60 research proposals for funding.

That same year, Syracuse University's total research funding fell to $67 million, down from a high of $79 million in 2010. Federal dollars, the benchmark in measuring a university's research ability, declined every year but 2011.

While the university can't clone the biomaterials institute, it can create collaborative labs in other fields.

But getting the right people takes money. SU had help with this in starting the biotech institute. To lure Mather, the university was able to get a $750,000 grant through the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation. Four other New York schools received state grants that year to recruit research talent.

And with Mather came James Henderson, a professor of biomedical and chemical engineering. Though the two didn't know each other, they both worked at Case Western Reserve and were recruited to come to Syracuse at the same time.

Henderson said the idea that he would work with researchers from other fields and institutions, like Upstate Medical University, on a regular basis made Syracuse more appealing. And Syracuse offered a leadership position: Henderson is a principal investigator at SBI with a lab that bears his name.

"It was exciting to be part of this institute that was something that the university was invested in. And to help build something new," Henderson said. Equally appealing was that the labs were already built and stocked with the right equipment for ground-breaking biotech research. That meant more of the research money would go directly to research.

Big risk and the hope of bigger reward

Over the past few years, the projects Henderson and others have worked on have received funding from private industry, like Boston Scientific and Bausch &Lomb, and from federal agencies, like the National Institutes of Health and the DARPA, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Henderson's high-ceilinged office in the institute is one floor down from the main labs. His primary research project these days may change how doctors fix shattered bones. It's a dissolvable plastic sleeve that goes under the skin, around the broken limb. The material holds the bone together as it heals, slowly dissolving as the bone becomes stronger.

If it works, the invention would make obsolete the metal hardware now used for those types of injuries. The benefits are multiple: less risk of infection, fewer surgeries, and a better chance that bones would heal completely, Henderson said.

The most obvious use for the sleeve is wounded warriors. Better body armor has increased soldiers' chances of surviving IED attacks, protecting all the major organs in an explosion. But the limbs are still left exposed. The sleeve Henderson and his colleagues have been working on could be a new, easier fix.

The first round of funding, roughly $275,000, was through the Department of Defense. Henderson just put in the application for the second round of testing and funding. He's working with researchers at the Syracuse VA Medical Center, Upstate University Hospital and SU. If the pitch is accepted, researchers at the biomaterials institute will receive $1.1 million for the project.

If the research works out, it could revolutionize the way broken bones are treated. And it could be a game-changer for SBI, with the potential to bring in more money and prestige.

The answer to that is a few years out, yet, with at least two more trials to go.

A medical silver lining

But another product invented in the labs at SU's institute could be heading to market this year.

Mather, of SBI, and Dacheng Ren, the director of SU's chemical engineering program, were part of a team that invented a new material to use for bandages that can last up to 10 days. The material has gel, made of silver, in it that will help keep the wounds from getting infected.

The collaboration that began in the labs extended to the Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Katherine Desy, an SU business student, pitched a plan to bring the bandage to market as her senior project in the entrepreneurship and emerging businesses program.

As school was letting out, Desy, 22, convinced the inventors to let her give it a try in the real world. She founded RMD Biotech in May, the same month she graduated from SU.

Like many of the products and technologies being developed at the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute, the silver bandage sounds far-fetched.

Desy isn't depending on the start-up's success to pay her bills: She's been working as a substitute teacher's aide and will start a new job at a marketing firm soon. She's working to fund the project through grants and her own money. Desy has less than $10,000 so far.

But working with the inventors gave her a taste for biotech she's not ready to leave behind.

"I started to think there might be something worth doing for real," Desy said. "The rest of my teammates pulled out and I decided to push forward."

Contact Marnie Eisenstadt anytime: email | twitter | 315-470-2246