UAB Graduate Program Produces Talented Biotech Work Force

A new master’s degree program in Biotechnology at UAB is producing a qualified local workforce that could benefit Birmingham’s growing biotechnology industry. Experts expect the program to attract top talent to the area and to entice venture capitalists to invest in firms launched by graduates.

Program Director Kathy Nugent, PhD, says the degree program – the first of its kind in the south and one of only a few in the U.S. – is essential for serving the needs of so many new biotechnology companies. “Because it takes 15 to 20 years for a biotech product to go from discovery to a marketable product, the biotech industry has been in adolescence since the mid 1970s,” she says. “Now, biotechnology is evolving and there are hundreds of companies out there with products. In addition, the biotechnology sector has become a discovery arm for pharmaceutical companies. All of this has created a need for specialty training in biotechnology.”

The UAB master’s degree program is unique in that the curriculum is split between science and business courses. “Students learn how to recognize solid developing technology properties that have commercialization potential,” Nugent says. “They also are taught how to write business plans, navigate the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory process, and to market their products and patent discoveries.”

The biotechnology program consists of three semesters of course work, a two-week internship at a biotechnology company, a research project, and a scientific poster presentation at the end of the third semester. Students can choose to complete 34 credit hours for the M.S. degree in Clinical Laboratory Sciences or 20 credit hours for a Graduate Certificate in Biotechnology.

UAB offers many ingredients to make the program a success:

An excellent research institution with a life science focus and a scientific community
A program faculty that is dedicated to teaching students how to apply scientific knowledge to solving problems
University-wide interdisciplinary research centers that facilitate collaborations among faculty members
Access to first-class scientific core facilities with state-of-the-art equipment
A 140,000-square-foot Innovation Depot that serves as an incubator for start-up biotechnology companies
Access to more than 80 biotech companies in Alabama
Access to the Biotechnology Association of Alabama, which brings together the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, research scientists and the business community to promote the growth of these industries in Alabama.

Nugent also brings special skills to the program. She is a 20-year veteran of the health care/biotechnology industry, the executive director of the Biotechnology Association of Alabama, and a consultant with Burns McClellan, a life-sciences communications company. She is also a teacher and serves as associate professor for the master’s degree program.

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the new master’s program is its partnership with the UAB Research Foundation, which identifies, protects and markets commercially viable intellectual property developed at UAB. Foundation staff members review disclosures submitted by UAB associates and initiate steps to protect rights of discovery, including the filing of patents when appropriate.

“The Research Foundation gives our students real companies to work with,” Nugent says, “so they are not doing random business plans and market analyses. They do analysis for real companies.” The next step, Nugent adds, is for students to work with the Innovation Depot where they can manage an actual company. Company officers show students the direction they want to take and the students work for them. “So far, this has been incredibly successful,” she says.

David Winwood, Chief Executive Officer of the UAB Research Foundation, says the partnership with the biotechnology degree program is a win for both sides. Because the work at the Foundation is so labor intensive, the students provide much needed manpower. “The cases we give them are already filed for patents, so they are working on live technologies,” Winwood says. “We are leveraging resources from an enthusiastic group of students in a team environment to work on real cases. They get to see all the warts and wrinkles they will deal with in real life. At the end of the day, we anticipate that through the material shared along the way these students may identify potential markets and partners for products that the researchers didn’t even know about.”

Winwood adds that the educational value of this program is great and provides more learning opportunities than one can get from textbooks alone. “The early exposure these students receive adds value to their education because they have a firmer grasp of what a company has to pursue to get a product to market. That will help them when they get a job,” he says.

With the ability to offer this unique training locally at UAB, Nugent says their aim is to keep the graduates in Alabama to fill the needs of existing businesses and to attract new companies to Birmingham. “The next five to 10 years will be crucial in our area for the future of biotechnology,” she says. “We hope companies will realize that we are producing an extremely talented work force here.”