Blogs

It’s a long slippery slope. One day you wake up and think, “We could do so much more for our students if only we had a bit more funding.”

Back in March, we [Digital World Biology, Bio-Link.org, and the AC2 Bio-Link Regional Center] hosted a panel discussion at the ABRF annual meeting to introduce community colleges to ABRF and vise versa. I am pleased to report that the session was a great success.

Why did we do this?

The ABRF is the Association for Biomedical Resource Facilities. These are the core facilities that support research at companies, government institutions, and Universities.

Our session had two goals: One was to showcase the kinds of advanced technical education that... Read more

The utilization of single use technologies for some or all of the processes in biotechnology have become common. Engineers can substitute plastic components for stainless steel-permanently plumbed systems at any point in the biomanufacturing process, although the technology to do this in the upstream process is much more mature than in downstream technologies. This approach replaces reusable stainless steel equipment with disposable, typically plastic, components.

The industry often uses the terms “single-use” and “disposable” as synonyms. In the early days of this technology vendors emphasized the term single use because it sounded better – the situation was similar to... Read more

Many of the drugs and other products that biotechnology companies produce are based on monoclonal antibodies. Biotechnicians who know how to work with and purify these materials are in demand.

Recently, the Northeastern Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2) made new curriculum modules available that include procedures for the upstream and downstream methods used to produce a specific anti-IL8 monoclonal antibody from CHO cells. This work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technology Education program (DUE #1501631).

Since antibodies play such a critical role in biotechnology, I thought it would good to write a... Read more

Contributed by:

N. Jan Chalupny, PhD
Manager, Biotechnology Outreach and Adjunct Faculty
Shoreline Community College
16101 Greenwood Ave N
Shoreline, WA 98133

Shoreline Community College students are working in partnership with the University of Washington, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and NOAA Fisheries on a research project to determine the genetic diversity within and between populations of the Pacific Sand Lance ( Ammodytes personatus ).

The Pacific Sand Lance is found along the west coast of the United States and Canada where it... Read more

I think cell culture can be one of the most exacting skill sets in biotechnology. I have done it, and sometimes it went well, and sometimes it did not!

Millipore Sigma has posted some terrific (and free!) videos that cover many important topics about cell culture. Some of the videos are very short and cover just one specific point such as how to cryopreserve your cells. Others are webinars that are about an hour long and cover a number of topics including the incredibly important topic of cell line verification.

I particularly liked the... Read more

Book review : Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

In the many years I’ve been educating future biotechnicians, most of my experiences with biotech companies have been good.

But there are always exceptions.

How do we prepare our students for low - not non-zero possibility that they could find themselves working in a company like Theranos? Theranos looked great from the outside and made exciting claims about performing multiple tests from small amounts of blood, while deceiving investors and partner companies, and endangering patients by returning invalid results.

I haven’t encountered many fradulent... Read more

South Dakota has a lot happening this summer. Not only can you visit Badlands National Park, or gaze at Mt. Rushmore, but if you are an undergraduate student you can find some terrific research opportunities. Undergraduate students from around the country can get real-world research experience while participating in Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs and other research opportunities on the campus of South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

Funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF), REUs are paid 10-week research opportunities for undergraduate students hosted by various institutions both... Read more

Last December (12/21/2018) City College of San Francisco held its 22nd annual Biosymposium, on the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) campus. Over 180 individuals participated. 33 CCSF students presented posters and 40+ volunteers from academia, industry and government attended to support those student's career development through mock interviews, judging poster presentations, networking lunch discussions and a panel discussion on transitioning to the Biotech workforce. The Biosymposium is the CCSF Biotechnology Program's capstone event for its Biotechnology Internship Programs .

Of the 33 poster presentations, 15 CCSF Biotechnology students presented posters on internship research they performed at... Read more

Two students from Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC) in Kalispell, MT, Skye Hatfield and Kyle Montgomery, presented their research projects at the Fall 2018 CCURI (Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative) Research Colloquium in Glendale, AZ. The FVCC students’ projects focused on identifying antibiotic compounds from plant and fungi species collected in the Flathead Valley located in NW Montana. The CCURI conference provided the students with the opportunity to interact with fellow community college undergraduate research students and attend workshops on mentoring and building their scientific resumes through summer internships.

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