Southfield (WWJ) -- Amid hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in manufacturing, we can be forgiven if we wonder -- after the auto industry, what is Michigan going to be famous for next?
Hundreds packed a room at a WWJ Newsradio 950-University Research Corridor business conference Wednesday morning at the Michigan State University Management Education Center in Troy to hear about hope and opportunity for Michigan's future.
Prior to Wednesday's event, WWJ Technology Editor Matt Roush spoke with URC experts about what's in store for Michigan's economy. 
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The event featured two panel discussions, one on the life sciences and one on renewable energy.
The life sciences panel discussed topics including emerging technologies from the laboratory that are transforming patient care; why health care could be Michigan's new economic growth engine; and new skills that are needed for new medical technologies.
The panel touched on some of the challenges Michigan faces in attempting to grow these industries. Among them is training and retaining young professionals, said Eva Feldman, M.D., director of of UM's A. Alfred Taubman Medical Center Research Institute.
Feldman said Michigan needs to be more like Chicago, for example, in offering young people a quality social environment as well as a quality education.
Paul Hunt, Michigan State University Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, said at MSU they're working on projects to attract and keep students in the area, including a plan to make the Michigan Avenue corridor, which leads from campus to downtown Lansing, "cool" and student friendly.
Even in this economic slump, Feldman said at UM they are dealing with life sciences companies currently adding jobs in this sector, and there will be more to come.
"There was a study done at Wayne State that put the number of new jobs that stem cell technology could eventually create in the state of Michigan at about 4,000," Feldman said.
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And Feldman said Michigan is in good shape to assist companies in filling these positions,
"We graduate more Ph.D's in life sciences than almost any other public university," Feldman said. "I think the future holds great promise."
If you're laid off auto worker looking for a new career path, Dr. Albert King, chair and distinguished professor of biomedical engineering at Wayne State University, said it wouldn't be too difficult for a former auto engineer to move into the life sciences industry.
King said WSU offers certificate programs that can get you qualified for some of these positions, if you don't have the time or resources to earn a traditional degree.
Opportunities in these sectors are vast, according to Ann Marie Sastry, director of the energy systems engineering program at the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. She spoke on the second panel on energy, with Soji Adelaja, director of the MSU Land Policy Institute and a professor in the department of agricultural economics, geography, and community, agriculture, recreation and resource studies and Jerry Ku, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Wayne State and co-director of the Alternative Energy Technology Program
Sastry said she's working on large lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicle applications. She said her research and her spinoff company, Sakti3, are working on batteries that solve the problems of overheating and perform better in the tough, demanding automotive environment. She said moving the automotive fleet to electricity can produce a far lower carbon footprint than today's gasoline engines, because the electricity is produced centrally in power plants where carbon can be controlled.
Adeleja spoke of the Land Policy Institute's studies on renewable energy, and said Michigan has huge potential for wind power farms, as well as in manufacturing wind turbines. ,
Ku talked up wind and solar power -- as well as Wayne State's pioneer master's degree program in renewable energy.
"If we do in fact become a leading state in the installation of wind systems and in the application of wind toward energy we also have the potential of organizing our productive infrastructure to be able to support that," Adelaja told WWJ. Adelaja said Michigan also can become an exporter of equipment and expertise to other parts of the country.
Hear the panel discussion by clicking on the podcasts on the right side of this page.
View photos from the event.
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