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CityLab Academy
$1 million initiative will expand MED biotech job training program
By Brian Fitzgerald
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Following an August 17 press conference at CityLab Academy, recent program graduate James Leonard (right), who now works as a technician at Genzyme in Cambridge, with (left to right) State Senator Diane Wilkerson (D-Boston), Boston Mayor Thomas Menino (Hon.’01), and BU President ad interim Aram Chobanian. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
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Jennifer Deady was adept at science in high school, but “didn’t know much about biotechnology,” she says, until she enrolled in CityLab Academy, a BU job training program that offers science courses with an emphasis on laboratory research skills.
Deady (MET’07), now a research technician at SDM’s Clinical Research Center, is one of 50 students who have graduated from CityLab Academy since its inception in 1996. And as the biotech field is growing rapidly, so will CityLab Academy. A major expansion will enable the program to train 105 students in the next three years, thanks to $1 million in scholarships provided by the BU Medical Center.
With the new initiative, targeted toward Boston residents, BU aims to prepare more high school graduates for careers in biotechnology and biomedical research, and particularly for job opportunities created by the new laboratories being built on the Medical Campus, including the new $120 million federally funded National Biosafety Laboratory. The proposed facility, where scientists will investigate naturally occurring diseases as well as those diseases that could be used as weapons of bioterrorism, is expected to create more than 660 permanent jobs — approximately 500 of them positions such as laboratory technicians and assistants, research coordinators, systems technicians, and maintenance operators.
CityLab Academy’s free nine-month curriculum trains students in the basic protocols of solution-making, cell culture, protein purification, gel electrophoresis, and other commonly used research techniques. The fall semester consists mostly of classroom work, followed by a spring session that focuses on lab experiments. The program also coaches students in résumé writing, job interviewing, and public speaking.
In addition, graduates earn 12 credits from MET that can count toward a bachelor of science degree in MET’s Biomedical Laboratory and Clinical Sciences Program (BLCS), which offers classes in the evening and Saturday mornings.
“If it weren’t for CityLab Academy, I never would have gotten into the field,” says Deady, now a sophomore in BLCS. “It opened up my eyes so much to the careers that biotechnology has to offer.” After she graduates from MET, Deady hopes to enroll in MED’s Master of Arts in Clinical Investigation Program.
Like Deady, many CityLab Academy graduates continue their education and take advantage of their employers’ education and/or tuition reimbursement benefits. BLCS major Ada Koo (MET’05), from Quincy, is a research associate at AdipoGenix, a biotechnology firm operating out of BioSquare, a research and business park in Boston’s South End being developed as a joint venture by Boston Medical Center and BU. “I find that many high school students who like the sciences are not aware of biotechnology,” says Koo. “That’s a shame, really, because the biotechnology industry today is expanding faster than there are people to fill the positions.”
According to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, half of the increase in jobs between 1999 and 2002 in the state was in biotechnology positions. The number of biotech employees alone jumped from 7,682 to 26,329. “ Massachusetts is ranked first in the country in the number of biotech firms,” says CityLab Academy Director Connie Phillips, a MED research assistant professor. “ California is a close second.”
Phillips started CityLab Academy with a Massachusetts Department of Education grant as an extension of MED’s CityLab program, a mobile learning laboratory for middle and high school students. “Each year, through CityLab, we saw thousands of kids,” says Phillips, “and we especially wanted to target students from middle-class and disadvantaged backgrounds who didn’t have enough money to go to college.”
Phillips says that for the students, the crucial portion of the program is the internship. “They intern one day a week for 10 weeks in a lab, and that really defines their experience,” she says. “It clinches the deal. After the internship, a student says, ‘Yes, this is for me,’ or ‘No, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.’ And sometimes the interns do so well that the researchers end up hiring them.” That was the case with 2003 CityLab Academy grads Deady and Khadija Rhourida (MET’07) of Everett, a research technician at the SDM Periodontal/Oral Biology Laboratory.
Recent graduates now work at such biotech companies as Genzyme in Allston, and Organogenesis, in Canton. The starting salary for CityLab Academy graduates averages $30,000.
“This commitment addresses our need for new growth industries, economic development, and viable educational and long-term employment opportunities,” says State Senator Diane Wilkerson (D-Boston). “Coupled with continuing the tradition of Boston being on the cutting edge of innovation and medical research, this initiative brings us one step closer to making that tradition today’s reality.”
10
September 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations