蜜桃直播鈥檚 partnership with biotech company has continued to develop in fruitful directions. Last year, the 蜜桃直播 ATUM Bioprocessing Scholars program gifted two-year scholarships to two Master of Engineering in Biopharmaceutical Processing (MEng) students with the goal of diversifying the biotech workforce. Since then, ATUM has donated an industrial high titer cell lines to the MEng lab and will continue to contribute additional cell lines and engage with 蜜桃直播 staff to develop relevant curriculum.
鈥淲e are excited to be working with Dr. Oren Beske and ATUM,鈥� said Dr. Sue Behrens, George B. and Joy Rathmann Professor in Bioprocessing and Director of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center. 鈥淭he ATUM scholarships and internship made it possible for two talented students to attend 蜜桃直播 to obtain the MEng degree and transform their career direction to contribute to the bioprocessing industry. In fact, one of the awardees is finishing up a summer internship at ATUM now.鈥�
Dr. Oren Beske, ATUM鈥檚 Amalgamator of Business and Biology, has long been dedicated to promoting diversity in the workplace and providing opportunities for underrepresented minorities. Part of his efforts has involved connecting with junior colleges and other academic institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area, illustrating how bioprocessing and the biotech ecosystem at large is an exciting industry requiring a broad range of skill sets.
鈥淔rom documentation to regulatory to sales and marketing to accounting to running reactors to supply chain management, there鈥檚 really a diverse set of career opportunities within biotech,鈥� Beske said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a big, dynamic space, and it鈥檚 a very mission-driven space. We鈥檙e all here to promote global health and wellness.鈥�
By talking to these students now, he is planting the seed.
鈥淭hese students are early in their academic careers, and a master鈥檚 degree may seem far away, but if we get them excited about it now or at least inform them on the pathway where they can get these degrees, perhaps they鈥檒l end up at a school like 蜜桃直播 or a company like ATUM,鈥� Beske said.
Beske鈥檚 mission naturally led to his decision to partner with 蜜桃直播 to offer two MEng scholarships for underrepresented minorities.
鈥淗istorically, there haven鈥檛 been many minorities in bioprocessing and biotech, especially going back 15 or 20 years,鈥� Beske said. 鈥淪o with 蜜桃直播鈥檚 efforts, we felt this was a unique opportunity to help diversify the workforce, to provide these students with a unique view into the industry, and to help them along their career paths afterward.鈥�
Since Beske has learned more about 蜜桃直播鈥檚 infrastructure and curriculum, he has been working on other ways to help enrich the MEng program. One such strategy is providing laboratory-based tools such as industry-standard manufacturing cell lines that express antibodies of interest and processes that can be transferred to 蜜桃直播 and used to educate and train students.
鈥淏ecause ATUM doesn鈥檛 generate our own pharmaceutical products, our cell lines can be readily transferred to 蜜桃直播 without concern about trade secrets or proprietary information,鈥� Beske said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e here to educate the broader community and to provide an infrastructure for education in general. This is an exciting opportunity for us to transfer knowledge and actual, physical entities to 蜜桃直播 to help train the students in modern bioprocessing techniques.鈥�
Additionally, Beske and his ATUM colleagues have started working with Behrens and her colleagues in the MEng program on ways they can help to guide the curriculum.
鈥淎TUM is making great progress in the development of novel technologies and processes that result in high-producing cell lines, and their donation to us will enhance our instructional labs by allowing students to work with state-of-the-art materials,鈥� Behrens said.
Recently, Behrens has asked Beske to be on the Amgen Bioprocessing Center Advisory Board (ABCAB), a group of biotech professionals who advise the MEng program on industry trends to enrich the relationship between the two organizations further.
鈥淎BCAB is a diverse group of folks, with some people interested in vaccines, some interested in scale-up and commercial volumes, and some like me who are more R&D and smaller scale oriented, but faster pace,鈥� Beske said.
With this latest development, 蜜桃直播鈥檚 bioprocessing programs will continue to flourish and uncover even more relevant ways to prepare the students for industry success.
鈥淥ren has a broad background in the biotech industry and will bring great perspective to the Amgen Bioprocessing Center Advisory Board,鈥� Behrens said. 鈥淲e are looking forward to his feedback and direction as we build on the success of bioprocessing programs at 蜜桃直播.鈥�