Goggles, gloves, and aprons on. Grab a 15 mL tube with the green cap. Don’t forget to label everything. The first few minutes of Associate Professor Roger Greenwell’s biotechnology lab are a flurry of set-up, instruction, and organization.

The assignment for today: protein purification. Teams of undergrad and grad students gather around their lab stations as Greenwell leads them step by step through two hours of hands-on lab work—answering questions, troubleshooting, and testing their knowledge. The camaraderie, teamwork, and thoughtful conversations suggest the students also enjoy the work—which might not be the point—but it certainly bodes well for their future as scientists.

“We have a very busy afternoon,” Greenwell announces. “I don’t want anyone to graduate from here without having run a protein gel.”

For those students who want to land a job in biotechnology, this lab training is essential. And such jobs are in high demand—locally and across the state.

By 2024, Massachusetts will need to fill more than 40,000 jobs in life sciences—many of them in the state’s growing biotechnology sector. In Ģ������Ƶ alone, there was a nearly 20 percent increase in research and development jobs between 2020 and 2021, according to the Mass Biotechnology Council, and the average salary for industry employees in the city topped $122,000.

In 2022, Ģ������Ƶ had 389,000 square feet of new biotech facilities under construction, space that will be filled with a combination of biotech/biomed startups and global biotech companies that are expanding research, manufacturing, and operations in Central Massachusetts. Many are eager to hire college graduates with strong lab skills, basic science knowledge, and an interest in pushing the frontiers of discovery.

Ģ������Ƶ is providing a clear pathway to these opportunities with its interdisciplinary biotechnology program in the School of Science, Technology, and Health. Combining biological and chemical sciences, and tapping into summer research opportunities in the university’s Aisiku STEM Center, the program offers baccalaureate and master’s degrees, as well as a 4+1 accelerated dual bachelor’s-master’s degree program.

In 2022, the program garnered recognition for its combination of small class sizes and mentoring, rigorous hands-on laboratory training, affordability, and value. ranked Ģ������Ƶ State the #1 best value undergraduate biotech program in New England in 2022, and ranked the program among its Top 10 Biotechnology Degrees in the U.S., along with schools like UC Davis, Purdue, and the University of Georgia.

“We prepare our students with the skills and the knowledge, so when they get to the industry, they can quickly hit the ground running,” said Associate Professor of Chemistry Weichu (Brian) Xu, who co-leads the program with Greenwell and worked at GL Synthesis in the Massachusetts Biotech Research Park in Ģ������Ƶ before joining the faculty. “We definitely see the opportunities in Central Massachusetts with the biotech industry—new buildings and expanded programs—a lot is happening.”

Biotechnology major Aman Johnson ’23 works on protein purification in lab class. (Photo by Nancy Sheehan)

Along with laboratory training, faculty in the biotechnology program have focused on building partnerships with industry leaders. In 2019, the program established an industry advisory board made up of biotech leaders, some of them graduates of Ģ������Ƶ State. By keeping pace with a fast-evolving industry, faculty continually improve the curriculum, establish research and equipment-sharing collaborations, and develop internship opportunities for students.

Most recently, the university’s science labs are being outfitted with new, industry-relevant equipment to ensure students have hands-on laboratory skills that are in greatest demand by employers. Read more about the $658,000 grant from the Baker-Polito Administration and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

“One of the things Ģ������Ƶ State does really well is they have a great team that is flexible and creative and really tries to prioritize industry partnership,” said Jon Weaver, president and CEO of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI), which works across academia, business, and government to promote the startup of biomedical companies throughout the state.

In 2022, CBRE, a global commercial real estate company, analyzed the country’s top 74 life sciences labor markets, evaluating both occupational and educational data. Boston/Cambridge and San Francisco were the largest clusters—and Ģ������Ƶ ranked #15, right behind Houston and Atlanta. Together, that means Massachusetts is the place in the world to do biotech research, Weaver said.

“Every major biotech company is represented in Boston and Cambridge,” Weaver said. “Being that close to Boston and Cambridge requires a regional strategy, and Ģ������Ƶ is an important part of that regional strategy. A lot of that is tied to Ģ������Ƶ producing really great talent. There’s a whole vital ecosystem that comes with having a good percentage of colleges in your community, and Ģ������Ƶ is blessed with that.”

In a 2022 survey, the university found that 79 percent of Ģ������Ƶ State biotech alumni from the past three years are working in the industry, and 20 percent were in graduate school—a remarkable track record for any program.

Read more about biotechnology alumni Samantha Durand MS ’22 and Nicolas Esper ’20, who are both working at Massachusetts biotech firms.

“Our students, who are graduating with a strong foundation in biologic and biotech sciences, are getting cherry picked from one job to the next,” said Biology Professor Daron Barnard, who leads the university’s Aisiku STEM Center. “We see them getting hired away and going into top companies. Our 4+1 biotech master’s has been an incredible boon for our students.”

Emily Griffin works on protein purification. (Photo by Nancy Sheehan)

The MS in biotechnology program—designed to be completed in the evening—often attracts individuals already working in biotech who want to further their skills and knowledge. Fitchburg State biology graduate Grace Kim had been working in quality control at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) for five years when she decided she wanted a master’s degree.

“What was happening at work was they were bringing on a lot of technology, and because I was a general biology major without a focus on biotech, there were gaps in my understanding,” Kim said. “I was getting curious about other things. Ģ������Ƶ State was affordable, and it was close by. The schedule of the program was flexible, so I could go to school at night while I worked during the day. Ģ������Ƶ State was offering a lot of classes that hadn’t been available to me, and those classes were part of my day-to-day work at BMS. Meeting other students who were also out in the field working at different companies was helpful—that’s not something I expected.”

After finishing her MS at Ģ������Ƶ State in 2017, Kim was able to move into a new role at Bristol Myers as a microbiologist in Process Microbiology, a global unit that oversees control strategies in the manufacturing process of drugs. She now serves on the biotechnology program’s advisory board, providing insight to the university about how her education translated in her work at BMS.

For Greenwell, who teaches many of the biotech classes, knows every student in the program, and keeps in touch with many of them after they graduate, the vision is to establish Ģ������Ƶ State’s biotechnology program as the premiere public undergraduate institution for biotechnology and to work closely with and integrate support from our local biotechnology industrial partners.

Top image: Associate Professor Roger Greenwell teaches students in his biotechnology lab how to do protein purification. From left are: Daniel Clark, Benjamin Bui, Sheila Badu, Roger Greenwell, Aman Johnson, Kya Perez (white sweater) and Emily Griffin.

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For her master’s thesis in biotechnology, Samantha Durand proposed a scientifically ambitious and professionally strategic idea. She would attempt to create beating cardiac organoids from human-induced pluripotent stem cells—and the experiment would serve as a pilot project for MatTek Life Sciences, the tissue culture biotechnology company where she works full time as an associate scientist.

Scientists around the world have been working on the development of cardiac organoids—lab-grown masses of cells that replicate the functions of a human heart. These small tissue cultures hold significant potential for modeling heart development, studying disease and heart defects, and safely testing drug therapies. The scientific world is particularly interested in advancing cardiac organoid technology, as heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.

Durand had experience in tissue culture work, but had never attempted to create an organoid. Working in the MatTek research and development lab with support from her thesis committee, led by Professor Jennifer Hood-DeGrenier, she was able to create cellular-level cardiac tissue from iPS cells, cells that can be isolated and reprogrammed to have the potential to become any kind of human cell. The next step was to see if she could get the tiny tissue cultures to beat like a human heart.

“Creating organoids has a lot of steps, and Samantha was acquiring the knowledge as part of the training,” recalls MatTek Chief Science Officer Dr. Seyoum Ayehunie, who also supervised the work. “In the first experiments, she was able to go further but she couldn’t get it to beat. I told her to be patient and take it as far as she can.”

Durand kept at it—over the course of four weeks she ran several more attempts, making slight adjustments to the culture conditions in the hope of achieving a beating organoid.

“One day she called me and said, ‘I have a beating heart organoid,’” Ayehunie said. “Everyone was excited.”

(See video below of one of Durand’s beating cardiac organoids.)

That included her mentors at Ģ������Ƶ State. “When Sam emailed me the video of her first beating cardiac organoid, I was totally thrilled and immediately shared it with colleagues in the Biology Department,” said Hood-DeGrenier. “Scientists have been working to generate functioning organoids for many different types of organs, but cardiac organoids are especially awe-inspiring because you can see directly that they are doing their job because of the physical beating.”

Samantha Durand with MatTek Chief Science Officer Dr. Seyoum Ayehunie, who helped to supervise her research on cardiac organoids.

This type of research is on the cutting edge of cellular and developmental biology, said Hood-DeGrenier. “It’s terrific that Sam had the opportunity to participate in it as part of her master’s degree and to share it with others in the Ģ������Ƶ State community in her thesis defense.”

For Durand, the research—and her entire graduate experience at Ģ������Ƶ State—was a win-win, academically and professionally. The Dracut native had come to Ģ������Ƶ State with a bachelor’s degree in health sciences from Merrimack College and two internships at Pfizer under her belt. She hoped that graduate school would fill gaps in her education now that she was a working scientist. She defended her thesis in the fall and received her MS in December.

“My major was not specifically in biotech or biomedicine—it was more of a pre-med track,” she said. “I wanted to go back to school and gain more experience and take more classes that fit my interests. The classes at Ģ������Ƶ State were awesome. I loved every professor I had, and I was able to build relationships with most of them, and that’s really important to me.”

Today, Durand is working on an NIH grant to develop bronchial/tracheal epithelial models for SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. “A lot of new projects come in, and a lot of what I learned in grad school is applicable to what I’m doing now,” she said. “It’s given me background and ideas on different avenues we can pursue.”

Ayehunie is hopeful that the MatTek research and development team he leads can continue to advance Durand’s work on cardiac organoids. Development of a typical drug therapy, he said, costs upward of $2 billion and can take 10 to 12 years in clinical trials. “If we have appropriate models, those times can be shortened and the cost can be minimized,” he said.

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As a junior biotechnology major, Nicolas Esper ’20 knew he needed to graduate with industry experience. Esper connected with the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI), a Ģ������Ƶ-based incubator for biomedical startups that has supported numerous Ģ������Ƶ State STEM education programs over the years.

During Christmas break, Esper toured MBI facilities where seed-stage companies can rent lab space, share equipment, and collaborate to grow their business. He realized that MBI offered a wealth of opportunities for someone just starting in biotech or biomedicine. “MBI is great,” he said “It’s a huge resource for students.”

That tour led to a lab tech internship with Zata Pharmaceuticals in 2019, where he gained a variety of skills—autoclaving, aseptic techniques, growing bacteria on autoplates. “It translated really well to real-world experience with a lot of valuable resume builders. It led me to make great connections and network with lots of people working in the area.”

From that internship, doors began to open. A second internship followed at Lake Pharma, an MBI Graduate Company now known as Curia, where Esper did cell culture work.

Today, the Rutland native who helped pay his way through school delivering pizza, is a junior-level scientist at AbbVie, among the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies, with a bioresearch center in Ģ������Ƶ. He was recently part of the team that supported the Skyrizi program, an FDA-approved therapy for plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and Crohn’s disease.

Nicolas Esper took advantage of biotech internship opportunities through Ģ������Ƶ’s MBI before graduating.

“My experience at Ģ������Ƶ State was top-tier,” Esper said. “With my degree and internships I had no issue finding work. People love to find students with degrees in biotechnology because it means they are very versatile in their skill set.”

Success stories like Esper’s are why MBI partners with Ģ������Ƶ State, says MBI President and CEO Jon Weaver. The early stage companies in MBI’s ecosystem need a talent pipeline, he said.

“I’m so proud of Nic,” Weaver said. “He is a rock star, a really talented and ambitious young guy, and he is great at building relationships. He worked at an MBI startup and ended up at AbbVie. He is a great testament to the Ģ������Ƶ State model of building talent that stays and succeeds in the region.”

Esper grew up with a love of science and an interest in technology. Unsure of what to study, he earned an associate’s degree at Quinsigamond Community College, where a college advisor encouraged him to look at Ģ������Ƶ State’s biotech program. The program, he said, required “an insane amount of studying and effort. It was to prepare you for the real world, to succeed in life. I don’t look back and think, ‘I wish they didn’t make this hard.’ I’m happy they did because I took more out of it.”

Classes like Chemical Analysis and Biochemistry that he took as part of his degree have proved to be useful to his work at AbbVie. His work involves setting up and running labs, interpreting the data, and creating results documents for colleagues who have submitted the lab samples.

Working at a global company like AbbVie keeps Esper working at the vanguard of science and innovation. He is earning an MBA at Assumption University and hopes to advance to managerial positions in the pharmaceutical industry, leading teams in the development of disease therapies.

“What’s exciting is being able to have an idea and see that idea come to fruition,” he said. “At AbbVie, I like hearing about the pipeline and what new ideas are coming out. One of the big things that keeps me inspired is being up to date about new ideas that aren’t brought to the general public right away. If that idea is approved, it’s really cool because I helped to contribute to it. I feel like I’m helping to make an impact.”

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