From Curriculum to Careers: MBI’s Grant-Driven Biotech Workforce Development

MBI’s workforce development efforts started well before our Challenge Grants came about. One of the key activities of the Massachusetts Biomedical Research Institute (MBRI), which is what MBI was once called, in the 1980s/1990s was biotechnology curriculum development for regional schools. 

(Pictured is an article snippet from Central Massachusetts Business Digest 1991)

Flash forward 20+ years to 2019, WuXi Biologics announced that they would be building a 36,000 liter manufacturing plant in Worcester. Recognizing that there would be an upcoming need for workforce development, the Massachusetts Office of Business Development (MOBD) entrusted MBI with funding to put into pipeline programs for the biotech workforce. MBI’s original Increasing Diversity in STEM grants were received by Worcester State University and Quinsigamond Community College for their efforts to give middle and high school students exposure and experience in STEM . 

Through our early efforts in workforce development with the MOBD, we saw that there was a breakdown occurring in communications between industry and academia. To rally our partners and create clear lines of communication, MBI and MassHire created the Biomanufacturing Workforce Initiative (BWI). Based on initial feedback of industry needs, MBI used 2020’s funding to create a new grant type, our Workforce Challenge Grant, which seeded the development of the AbbVie/Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) Biomanufacturing Technician Training Program. Since then, recipients of our Workforce Challenge Grant include QCC’s Cell Culture add-on (to the Tech training program), MassBioEd’s Apprenticeship programs, Girls, Inc.’s Eureka! program, and MCPHS’s Quality Assurance/Quality Control training program. 

In 2023, MBI created a third Challenge Grant called “Empowering Minority Entrepreneurs in STEM” which has directly funded the success of multiple minority-owned startups in MBI and through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center’s MassNextGen program.