Alabama’s Biotech Future

In a changing environment, surviving and thriving depends on the ability to adapt.

The changes Alabama’s economy is experiencing may not be as dramatic as those that separated the mammals from the dinosaurs. The impact of globalization, emerging economies and an increasingly technology-driven world, however, have made the 19th Century approach to building an economy on finite resources and cheap labor as obsolete as a dodo bird.

Fortunately, change can be for the better, especially for those prepared to take advantage of new opportunities.

Getting Alabama ready for an economy powered by creative thinking and technology—particularly biotechnology—has been the focus of several hubs of innovation around the state. Now those efforts are bearing remarkable results.

“So often I hear ‘Gee, I didn’t know we had all this in Alabama,’” said Kathy Nugent, PhD. President of the Biotechnology Association of Alabama, Nugent is director of UAB’s Masters of Biotechnology program and co-chair of the Workforce Committee for the Coalition of State Bioscience Institutes.

“Exciting work is going on at more than 550 bioscience companies around Alabama,” Nugent said. “In addition to advances in diagnostics and treatment at UAB, Birmingham has a strong life sciences industry, including Southern Research Institute and terrific new startups at the Innovation Depot and all around the city. You’ll find more great work in Auburn and Tuscaloosa. At the University of South Alabama in Mobile, the Mitchell Cancer Institute has achieved significant advances in early detection and treatment. Huntsville continues to be a hot spot for science, with The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and many other biotech companies doing groundbreaking work.”

The definition of biotech is also expanding. Beyond drug development, diagnostic tools and medical devices, new biotech companies are pursuing breakthroughs in biomaterials, drug delivery, robotics, optics and imaging. The human genome project opened up a whole new universe of technologies related to sequencing and gene-based and cellular therapies. One of the fastest growing fields is bioinfomatics, as a flood of new data challenges the limits of silicon-based computing.

The opportunities abound, but as Nugent emphasized, the key to fulfilling the promise of biotechnology is a well-trained workforce. HudsonAlpha Institute’s educational outreach program is making a good start toward inspiring an interest in science in younger students and providing tools to help life science teachers inspire their classrooms. At the undergraduate and postgraduate level, Alabama’s universities have been strengthening their programs to prepare students for careers in biotechnology.

“To develop a flourishing life sciences industry and attract new businesses to Alabama, having a strong talent pool ready with the necessary skills is essential,” Nugent said. “We’re also seeing demand evolve toward workers with more broadly based interdisciplinary training with the ability to work across multiple areas and in project teams. There is also a growing emphasis on workers who understand both the science and the business side of bringing biotechnology to market.”

Joseph Garner, PhD, teaches classes in the Biotechnology Masters Program at UAB. He is also Chairman and CEO of Soluble Therapeutics, a company created for commercial development of work in protein solubility by UAB researchers Larry DeLucas, PhD and Bill Wilson, PhD.

“Most university programs teach either biotechnology or business. What’s unique about UAB’s masters program in biotechnology is that it teaches both so students understand how to bring an idea to market, what is involved in finding funding, how to work with regulators though the approval process, and how to set up operations” Garner said. “They learn to speak both science and business. In fact, our graduates are often recruited for positions you might think of as translators. Research priorities and business priorities can be very different. Our graduates can communicate with both sides to help find solutions that work for everyone, and get everyone on the same page.”

Learning in a real world environment is another important difference in the UAB program.

“Our students don’t just read about case histories,” Nugent said. “They get involved in real projects for real businesses and work in teams and in internship where they interact and can see how the principles they are taught work in real life.”

Garner said, “Many students are recruited before graduation, often through internships, and over 94 percent are employed in their field within a few months in jobs that typically pay above average.

“Whether our students want to be entrepreneurs bringing their ideas from the bench to the marketplace, or translators between science and business, or executives in the life sciences industry, this program gives them a solid foundation in the skills and knowledge they will need.”

Garner also said that what students learn applies in many different areas of biotechnology.

“Medical biotechnology is only the beginning,” he said. “Biotechnology is working on solutions to many of the world’s challenges---hunger, environment and energy. Biotechnology engineers bacteria to clean up oil spills. It’s working on biomass to create renewable sources of energy, and agriculture to increase food production and ecological sciences are protecting other plant and animal species that share our world.”

Biotechnology is becoming the next great economic engine to power the future. It can be part of Alabama’s future—if we prepare to meet it.