BATAVIA, NY (08/21/2008) -- Lauren Mullen, a senior at Byron-Bergen High School, plans to attend college after graduation to study veterinary science. This summer, she took the opportunity to participate in the WIRED Biotechnology Program at GeneseeCommunity College, a course that allowed students to earn money while attending college credit courses for six weeks. One goal of this grant-funded program, aimed at students in Genesee, Livingston, Orleans, and Wyoming counties, was to encourage students to seek careers in the life sciences career field.

"I really enjoyed the program. It was great to have something to stimulate my brain during the summer," Lauren said. "And it was nice to get paid too."

Approximately forty of the area's brightest students participated in the program, which ran from July 7-August 16 and included instruction in Career and Educational Planning, Fundamentals of Cell Biology, and an Introduction to Biotechnology. One of the key features of the program included field trips to locations such as Gaymar Industries, Inc. in Orchard Park, a company that produces high-tech medical equipment; Syntec Custom Injection Molder in Pavilion, which manufactures injection molded plastic products for the pharmaceutical industry; University at Buffalo in Amherst, where students toured the Dental School Library and the School of Dental Medicine; and United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia, where students visited the hospital's laboratories.

http://readme.readmedia.com/news/show/WIRED-Biotechnology-Program-Gives-Students-Glimpse-of-High-Tech-Future-Careers/280433

 [ News from the high school academy/middle college/magnet school program front:  White Coat Ceremony - a nice medical school-y touch and recognition]

Ask the usual fifth-grader what they want to be, and pro sports athlete, police officer, firefighter and astronaut are the popular choices, even if few children ever follow through on their dreams.

When Timothy Young decided to be a brain surgeon in fifth grade, he made that a goal – one he continues to follow.

Young, a junior at EllisonHigh School, got a big boost for his dreams Wednesday. Young and about 150 other students from 12 Central Texas high schools were given white lab coats, signifying their acceptance into the Texas Bioscience Institute Middle College Program...

http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=27362

Here's another good review of how San Diego has developed its biotech cluster.

San Diego is home to the third largest concentration of biotechnology companies in the world, behind the Bay Area and Boston. It’s an impressive claim that industry insiders say is the result of two major forces: the cluster of world-class research institutes that sprang up more than 40 years ago on the Torrey Pines Mesa and the success of one local company that fostered a generation of gutsy entrepreneurs with the money and expertise to start new companies.

Read more.

College hosted high school teachers, students for program

STRATHAM — BioConnectNH recently hosted its second annual Biotech Summer Research Camp bringing together six high school teachers and six students from around the state to Great Bay Community College where they had the opportunity to advance their knowledge and experience in the growing field of biotechnology.

"I recently graduated from a small high school where the resources were limited," student Jennifer Gray said. "I left feeling almost unprepared for college due to lack of experience, particularly with laboratory equipment.

"I plan on attending Boston University in the fall majoring in biology and the BioConnectNH program allowed for me to gain knowledge with top of the line equipment, giving me the leverage I needed in order to compete in my classes. It boosted my confidence in completing laboratory experiments, and gave me the hands on experience I was in need of."

Prior to arriving at Great Bay Community College, the students proposed an area of study which built on biotech basics learned in their high school classes. During the week, students worked with their high school teachers and faculty from Great Bay, using the college's state-of-the-art equipment to pursue and further execute their proposal. The goal of the research camp was to increase the biotechnology knowledge of the students and teachers; increase the teachers' classroom skills and introduce students to the career options available to them in the biotechnology industry.

BioConnectNH provides training to upgrade the skills of existing workers and new entry level workers, and to create a career pathway for students at high school and college to easily move toward rewarding careers in the life sciences. BioConnectNH invests in the key areas of high school and community college capacity building, industry-driven workforce training, and works to connect employers, students and workers and develop the infrastructure needed to nourish growth in the NH biotech sector. BioConnectNH is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

For more information, visit www.ms.nhctc.edu/BioConnectNH.

A rather extensive Wikipedia entry for the Central New Jersey WIRED Bio-1 initiative.

As discussed during the Bioscience Interest Group meeting on Tuesday, July 15, below are links to a workforce survey and statistical data related to bioscience in Ohio.  Many thanks to Dr. Bill Tacon, Senior Director, Workforce & Education, BioOhio for sharing these with us:

http://www.bioohio.com/getdoc/2347ac32-b075-464d-a62c-ce037a4af1ea/2007-Ohio-Bioscience-Industry-Work-Force-Survey-Su.aspx 

http://www.bioohio.com/working-learning/Workforce-Facts-Figures.aspx

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has  announced the selection of two small-scale cellulosic biorefinery projects in Park Falls, Wis. and Jennings, La. for federal funding of up to $40 million over five years. These projects will further President Bush’s goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with corn-based ethanol by 2012, and help reduce America’s gasoline use by expanding the availability of alternative and renewable transportation fuels.

More …

July 1

The Delaware Valley Innovation Network (DVIN) announced today the award of its first Innovation Investment Grant. The Wistar Institute will receive $89,000 to support the Wistar Biomedical Technician Training (BTT) Program, a two-year workforce development program in biotechnology and biomedical research. 

The BTT Program provides Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) students instruction and hands-on experience training while preparing for careers as Biomedical Technicians. "We see tremendous value in supporting a pipeline of talented students from the Community College of Philadelphia through real work experience at the Wistar Institute, various industry laboratories and the Fels Institute," said Helen Groft, Project Director of DVIN. "These students will be able to jumpstart their careers and employers will have experienced candidates to hire."

The Innovation Investment Award will support the Wistar Institute-CCP partnership and provide training opportunities for 17 first and second year students through CCP's new Center for Science, Engineering and Emerging Technologies. Dr. William Wunner, Director of the Biomedical Technician Training Program said, "The BTT program equips promising community college students with a better understanding of cancers, genetics diseases, autoimmune diseases, and a multitude of related conditions that affect human and animal health."

Since 2001, life science companies and affiliated institutions where students participating in the BTT program have included:

·  Centocor (Radnor, PA)

·  Cephalon (West Chester, PA)

·  Charles River Laboratories (Malvern, PA)

·  GlaxoSmithKline (Collegeville, PA)

·  Neose Technologies (Horsham, PA)

·  Tengion, Inc. (East Norristown, PA)

·  University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP)

·  Fels Institute of Temple University

The Wistar Institute will be working with DVIN to expand their training program to other community colleges throughout the tri-state region.

About DVIN Innovation Investments
The DVIN Innovation Investment Fund will provide more than $2.4 million in grants over the next three years to support training and capacity building programs for the life science workforce in the Delaware Valley. Eligible applicants for the DVIN Innovation Investments include 501(c)3 non-profit organizations, individual businesses or business partnerships, educational entities, economic development organizations, workforce intermediaries, and community-based organizations.

The next deadline for Innovation Investment proposal submissions is October 1, 2008.

More information about DVIN Innovation Investments, including guidelines, FAQ's and upcoming information sessions is available at http://www.delawarevalleyinnovationnetwork.com/dvin/guidelinesannouncement.htmhttp://www.delawarevalleyinnovationnetwork.com/dvin/guidelinesannouncement.htm.

Point of Contact: Jason Maki, Project Coordinator, DVIN 215-496-8143, jmaki@innovationphiladelphia.comjmaki@innovationphiladelphia.com.


About DVIN
The Delaware Valley Innovation Network (DVIN) was formed in 2005 to apply for a Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. This unique, collaborative effort was endorsed by the governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and created a fourteen-county initiative to strengthen and grow the tri-state region's vibrant life sciences industry and workforce. DVIN's mission is to accelerate the transformation of the life sciences industry in the 14-county tri-state region into an internationally recognized center for excellence. DVIN will attract resources to support research, industry and human capital development. For more information, please visit www.delawarevalleyinnovationnetwork.comwww.delawarevalleyinnovationnetwork.com.

About the Wistar Institute
The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the country, Wistar has long held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute. Discoveries at Wistar led to the creation of the rubella vaccine that eradicated the disease in the United State s, human rabies vaccines used worldwide, and a rotavirus vaccine approved in 2006. Today, Wistar is home to preeminent research programs studying skin cancer, lung cancer, and brain tumors. Wistar Institute Vaccine Center scientists are creating new vaccines against pandemic influenza, HIV, and other diseases threatening global health. The Institute works actively to transfer its inventions to the commercial sector to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. The Wistar Institute: Today's Discoveries - Tomorrow's Cures. On the web at www.wistar.orgwww.wistar.org.

One of the great advantages of the WIRED initaitive comes in building new approaches to project-based learning in high schools. Here's an excellent example from Denver metro in biosciences:

A cutting-edge project designed to deliver hands-on training and equipment to Denver Metro high school teachers has come to a successful conclusion, and as a result, high school students throughout the region have had the opportunity to conduct more than 6,000 DNA-related experiments in the classroom during the 2007-08 school year.

Read more.

The project is designed to equip high school teachers and students with hands-on instruction in molecular biology and information about careers in Colorado’s bioscience industry.

The Community College of Aurora has launched this initiative and maintains a web site (Opening Minds to Bioscience) where you can learn more.

As concerns about global warming intensify throughout the world, aviation is receiving a disproportionate level of scrutiny for its contribution to total global production of greenhouse gases.

Even though aviation emits only about one-ninth as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as do motor vehicles, its high-visibility nature as an activity, its rapid growth as an industry and the fact that aviation emits most of its CO2 and particulate emissions in the upper atmosphere has made it a particular target for environmentalists.

Elizabeth Barratt-Brown, a senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, told last week's Eco-Aviation Conference in Washington, D.C. that in the United States, unless the industry achieves enormous efficiency increases, "by 2050 aviation emissions are expected to almost equal the amount from automobiles" because of aviation's growth. The event, sponsored by Air Transport World magazine and Leeham Company, was the first aviation environmental forum to be held in the United States.

Luckily for Earth, perhaps, the soaring price of oil has made the search for sustainable, CO2-neutral alternatives an immediate economic imperative as well as an environmentally critical focus for many human commercial activities — with aviation foremost among them. Economic experts are now viewing high oil prices as a long-term fact of life rather than a short-term blip, and say aviation in its present form simply can't live with the possibility of the price of a barrel of oil leveling at $200.

Research into fossil-fuel alternatives is snowballing. Eventually, a clean fuel such as hydrogen may be the answer for aviation — but the technologies that will allow it to be used safely and economically to power large aircraft are generally regarded as being 40 or more years away.

For aviation, it increasingly appears that biofuels — jet fuels made from plants or algae using any one of a variety of processes — represent by far the best medium-to-long-term hope for the economic and environmental survival of the industry. One of the main advantages of biofuels is that the plants used to make the fuels need lots of CO2 to grow, potentially making it possible for the aviation industry to achieve true carbon-neutrality.

"Boeing Commercial Airplanes and its partners are actively accelerating development of second-generation biofuels because they present an economically viable opportunity to sustainably power the world's commercial aircraft fleet," said Boeing in a recent briefing document entitled 'What is the future of jet fuel?'

Aviation's 'proven track record'

Aviation's "proven track record" in reducing its "carbon footprint" on a per-passenger basis already is excellent, with a 70 percent improvement in fuel-efficiency and CO2 emissions per passenger mile in the last 50 years, said Rolls-Royce senior environmental analyst Nuno Taborda.

"Aviation spends relatively more than any other industry on CO2 reduction," he said. Others noted that during the last 30 years, the U.S. automobile industry did not improve the fuel-efficiency and CO2 emissions of its products at all.

But civil aviation is only just starting. "The IATA (International Air Transport Association) goal is for a 25 percent emissions reduction per passenger by 2020," from an average of 4 kilograms of CO2 per 100 passenger kilometers to 3 kilograms, said Billy Glover, Boeing Commercial Airplanes' managing director of environmental strategy. In the U.S., "the Air Transport Association goal is for 30 percent by 2025." These goals do not include any positive effects from using sustainable biofuels which might be available by then, Glover added.

Various partnerships have been established to foster the development of alternative fuels and other ways to improve aviation's environmental efficiency. It is one area on which Airbus and Boeing cooperate willingly. One leading forum is the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI), which includes partners from the aviation industry, fuel suppliers, universities, and various U.S. government agencies.

CAAFI has established a fuel-certification roadmap that envisages achieving certification of jet fuels made entirely from biomass-derived pure hydrogenated oils in 2013. CAAFI also has set several intermediate targets, beginning this year with the planned certification of a fuel made from a 50 percent blend of biomass-derived syngas and conventional jet fuel. (Syngas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen and is created from feedstock by the Fischer-Tropsch process, which was discovered in 1923. Syngas can be processed into jet fuels.)

Finding the right biofuel feedstock

Key to the entire aviation biofuel issue is just what type of biomass is most suitable for fuel production. Several vital issues must be taken into account. First is the density and energy content of the fuel: It must take up a sufficiently small space that it can be carried in an aircraft and, similarly, a given volume of the fuel must produce enough energy so that an aircraft can carry enough in its tanks to complete its flight.

Second is the "carbon lifecycle" of the biofuel: that is, the net amount of CO2 produced during production and burning of the fuel, less the amount the biomass feedstock for the fuel absorbs while growing.

Third is the amount of sulfur and other particulates produced. Fourth is the hugely sensitive political issue of making sure the land and biomass used to make biofuel does not reduce the amount of food available to humanity and the Earth's fauna.

These considerations immediately rule out "first-generation biofuels" such as ethanol produced from corn and soybeans. Not only does ethanol not contain enough energy per unit volume to be suitable as an aviation fuel, but growing enough corn or soybeans to power all the world's airliners would require an area just about the size of the United States, according to Boeing. Nor does ethanol have suitable boiling and freezing points for aviation use.

Second-generation biofuels

Experts believe "second-generation biofuels" derived from the wood and nuts of plants such as Jatropha curcas (Barbados Nut) and babassu, which grow strongly in arid areas unsuitable as arable land and which (in jatropha's case) are poisonous anyway, represent a good interim solution.

These Latin American plants, as well as other flora such as switchgrass and salt-water-tolerant plants known as halocytes (among them marsh grasses found in parts of the Middle East), could be grown for fuel production in non-arable areas suited to their particular growth requirements. Different parts of the world would grow different biofuel-producing plants, depending on their local climatic and soil conditions.

However, there is a problem: Although their oils offer much higher energy content and much better boiling/freezing-temperature characteristics than ethanol, these plants wouldn't yield enough oil per hectare to be able to serve the aviation industry's fuel requirements unless, again, very large areas were given over to their cultivation.

Algae a likely long-term answer

There is broad consensus throughout the industry that, longer-term, algae represent the optimum solution to aviation's fuel needs. A number of basic problems need to be solved, such as ensuring enough light gets to every part of an algae tank to enable all the cells to grow properly; and drying algae cells sufficiently to enable the oil they contain to be extracted and cracked into jet fuel.

But Boeing and Airbus are confident these problems can be solved — and the benefits that algae offers as a "third-generation biofuel" are immense. Algae can produce an oil yield 15 times that of second-generation biofuel plants: The world's entire airliner fleet could be powered from a cultivated area just the size of West Virginia, or Belgium, says Boeing.

Additionally, because algae can be grown in tanks anywhere, biofuel-producing algae farms could be sited next to facilities producing jet fuel from coal or natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process. These "coal-to-liquid" or "gas-to-liquid" processes generate large amounts of CO2 from fossil fuels, making them unsuitable as sustainable fuel sources. However, if the CO2 they generate is piped off and used to grow algae in nearby farms, the two forms of fuel production together could create an efficient, carbon-neutral symbiosis for jet fuel production.