Executive Director NBC2
email: swallman at biomanufacturing.org
www.biomanufacturing.org
The purpose of this blog is to provide information and a perspective on relatively new advanced technology career paths in biomanufacturing. Biomanufacturing represents the maturation of the biotechnology industry which began in 1982 with the commercial production of human insulin in Escherichia coli cells by Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Biomanufactured products are made of or by living cells. Production technicians must nurture the cellular factories that make a bioproduct (upstream processing) and then purify these cellular products (downstream processing). Quality control technicians sample upstream and downstream processes for product purity, identity, strength and so forth. Biomanufactured products include biopharmaceuticals, replacement organs, nutriceuticals, industrial enzymes and biofuels to name a few.
Several areas of the country are successfully developing the infrastructure to support careers in biomanufacturing. We want to use this blog to communicate best practices and to get a conversation going relative to how to support the development of local biomanufacturing education and training and workforce infrastructures in locales with biomanufacturing facilities. We welcome faculty and teachers, students, and the general public to the BIOMAN blog.
FIRST BLOG ENTRY:
Recombinant Human Insulin first commercially produced by Eli Lilly and Company in 1982. Technicians are needed to biomanufacture the bioproducts, aseptically, and to quality test them for purity, identity, activity and strength. Biomanufactured medicines are currently used to treat multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke, psoriasis, breast cancer and other cancers.
An interesting link from January 5, 2010 New York Times by Susan Diesenhouse entitled Biopharmaceutical Industry Is Banking on Boston:
The article indicates that more than a million square feet of new biopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities/factories/plants are in the process of being built for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals near Boston/Cambridge. The companies and their locations are Bristol-Myers Squibb in Devens, MA; Shire in Lexington, MA; Genzyme in Framingham, MA; and Organogenesis in Canton, MA.
Biopharmaceutical manufacturing requires technicians to do the production and quality control work that is the key to a biomanufacturers success in producing a quality biopharmaceutical.
There are many institutions in the area that offer biomanufacturing technician education and training and are actively involved in developing the infrastructure for biomanufacturing education and training and workforce to support the needs of these companies for a local technical workforce to make and test the bioproduct. Many of the educational institutions are already partnered with one or more of these local biomanufacturers such as Minuteman Regional High School (MRHS) nearby Shire Human Genetic Therapies in Lexington, MA. Minuteman is in turn partnered with the biotechnology program at nearby Middlesex Community College in Lowell, MA. The partnership is led by Mary Jane Kurtz at MRHS and New England Hub Director for the Northeast Biomanufacturing and Collaborative (NBC2).
The Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2) is a local/regional/national education, industry and organization collaborative whose mission is to coordinate local and regional efforts into a national biomanufacturing education and training system to promote, create, and sustain a qualified workforce to improve the quality of life.
For the location and information on community college, university and high school programs that include biomanufacturing education and training in New England, the Northeast and the nation see www.biomanufacturing.org/edpartners.html.
