Best Practices in Biotechnology Education

The blogosphere is an amazing place, enabling the cultivation of rich relationships that may otherwise never come to pass. One such contact I have been lucky enough to cultivate is with Yali Friedman, Ph.D. the founder of thinkBiotech and author of Building Biotechnology and the BioTechBlog.

Yali’s newest work released today is Best Practices in Biotechnology Education. The work is directed at faculty seeking to start or expand biotechnology education programs; policy-makers and economic developers seeking to help meet workforce needs; and, students, scientists, and business professionals looking to enter the industry or upgrade their existing skills. The cases within describe a wide variety of programs from high school through Ph.D. programs. Some are in their first years, whereas others are quite mature and have diversified to offer myriad degree and certificate options. There is also strong international representation, with programs from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.

Best Practices in Biotechnology Education is a wonderfully diverse source of information and may serve as the starting place for installing an architecture of life science related programs at the high school, undergraduate and graduate levels.

So by now you may be wondering how this work relates to CLSDF? One need simply to flip to Chapter 3 and note the author is none other than Colorado’s own Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA the Academic Director of the Bioentrepreneurship Program at the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship at the University Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center.

Arlen delves deep into the Colorado Bioentrepreneurship Program (CBP) Fellowship in some ten plus pages. The chapter details CBP as...

...an intensive year-long program that provides a pathway for graduate and postdoctoral life science and engineering students to gain employment in the Colorado and global bioscience industry by delivering academic and real-world technology transfer and bioscience company experience.

As I’ve had the opportunity to observe the inaugural Class I CBP Fellows progress throughout the year the transformation from academician to confident entrepreneur has been unambiguous. Certainly I would have absolutely loved to participate in such a special opportunity. It would be fantastic to have some of the Class I CBP Fellows follow-up with a blog post about their experiences to date! Maggie? Susan? Darius? Sibyl? Freddie? What do you say? I would venture to guess that many readers would be interested in hearing your perspectives from being ‘in the trenches’.

My hope is that this fantastic program matures, grows and flourishes. For more information take a look at the course schedule and application process (here).

*NOTE* Feel the power of the Colorado BioScience Association (HERE)!
*NOTE* Take a look at the new Boulder Biotech Company Tree (HERE)!
*NOTE* Read the new eBook CLSDF 2007 - What's In A Year? (HERE)!

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