Spring is a busy time. I know many of you are busy celebrating your students' success and getting ready to attend poster sessions and/or graduation ceremonies.
We would love to help you show off the wonderful work you've all been doing and contribute to the community. Send us your stories today and we'll put them in future newsletters.
Have a great May!
Sandra Porter, PhD
PI, A Bridge to Bio-Link's Future, DUE 1764225
April 27, 2019 was a windy day in Maryland but the sun shone bright as 500 attendees, made up of faculty and students, gathered to celebrate STEM and learn about each other's projects.
It was great to hear students from Baltimore City Community College talk about their career paths and wonderful to meet with so many biotech faculty to share ideas and learn about their programs. Clearly, Maryland is becoming a force in biotech workforce education.
It’s a long slippery slope. One day you wake up and think, “We could do so much more for our students if only we had a bit more funding.”
There will be a pre-conference session on NSF proposal writing on Monday, July 22nd, 1-4:30 at HI TEC. If you're planning to submit a proposal this fall, this would be good to attend.
Congratulations to Des Moines Area Community College and Lonestar Community College on a successful partnership with the U Tex algae collection and NASA. Just a few days ago, their algae samples went into space to facilitate studying the effects of microgravity on algal growth.
Watch for details in our June Newsletter to see how you can participate and help gather data for NASA!
Click the image below to visit Bio-Link and watch the launch.
The utilization of single-use technologies has become common for many processes in biotechnology. Read James DeKloe's blog to find out some of the pros and cons of our shift to single-use technologies.
Back in March, Digital World Biology, Bio-Link.org, and the AC2 Bio-Link Regional Center hosted a panel discussion at the ABRF annual meeting to introduce community colleges to ABRF and vice versa. ABRF stands for the Association of Biomedical Resource Facilities. Resource facilities are the core labs at research institutions, Universities, and companies. They provide services like DNA sequencing, mass spectrophotometry, and more.
Our session had two goals:
1. Showcase the advanced technical education offerings that community colleges provide, and
2. Inspire discussions that can lead to future collaborations and benefit both ABRF laboratories and their neighboring community colleges.
Todd Smith from the ATE project Bridge to Bio-Link's Future and Digital World Biology organized and moderated the session.
Alice McConnell came to the Austin Community College Bioscience Incubator to find a way to help her children and others suffering from a very rare neurometabolic disorder with no cure, succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency (SSADH). With the Incubator's help she founded a company, Speragen, and is hard at work looking for a treatment for this devastating disease.
Del Mar students were treated to a talk by Dr. Mario Capecchi at the April 11th student research day. Dr. Capecchi is best known for his pioneering work on the development of gene targeting in mouse embryo-derived stem (ES) cells.
The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is pleased to announce a national grant competition for the MentorLinks: Advancing Technological Education program, developed with the support of the National Science Foundation. MentorLinks is designed for community colleges seeking to improve technician education programs in the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics fields. For information on applying for a mentor, or to become a mentor, visit the Bio-Link event page. Applications are due June 7, 2019.
Educators in the biology, microbiology, and bioinformatics fields want to hear what has worked in your classroom. Share your findings in a late-breaking abstract during the 2019 ASMCUE, August 1-4 in Tysons, VA. Data supporting the effectiveness of the strategy/approach must be included in the abstract. Abstracts are due June 1, 2019.
This conference will offer a focused, immersive professional development experience for high school teachers, community college faculty, and interpreters involved in teaching life sciences for deaf/hh students. We will focus on using case studies, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, and the challenges and opportunities for teaching with a visual language - American Sign Language (ASL)- to enhance student success in biology. Funds are available to support participation and travel. When: October 13-15, 2019
Where: National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester, NY
Hey industry partners:
Are you looking for employees with the right combination of lab skills and soft skills? Do you have internships for biotech students? Learn how you can post job biotech job ads and internships for free.
Funding for this project has been provided through the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technology Education Program, DUE 1764225.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, Bio-Link, or its partners.
