HCC to open biotech training center

Starting in January, Hillsborough Community College plans to offer a new program for people who want to work in biotechnology.

An HCC-based academic center surveyed dozens of high-tech companies in the Tampa area last year. The results, released this week, show that such companies need educated workers from all levels - Ph.D.s to community college graduates.

"What we found is that they need people with lab experience," said Kim Wilson, a project manager based at the Brandon campus.

The employers also said they needed people with mechanical and electrical skills, mechanical aptitude, manufacturing and computer skills.

The companies ranged from Transgenex Nanobiotech of Tampa, which is working to develop new ways to fight lung diseases and cancers, to Bovie Medical in St. Petersburg, which manufacturers surgical equipment.

Fifty-one companies with a total of about 2,600 workers responded to the survey. About half employ fewer than 30 people.

"We have a lot of small startups here," Wilson said. "We have a lot of room to grow."

Most of the companies need workers with at least a bachelor's degree, and many require graduate and post-graduate degrees. One company recruits a lot of its highly educated workers from overseas.

But 14 of the 51 companies employed people with associate's degrees or technical training.

Several companies said one of their greatest needs is people who understand basic laboratory etiquette, such as the importance of cleanliness and the careful handling of equipment, Wilson said.

Wilson works with an academic center known as BITT, the Florida Center of Excellence in Biomolecular Identification and Targeted Therapies. The center has offices at the University of South Florida and HCC-Brandon.

BITT produced the survey in partnership with another academic center at HCC, called FLATE, the Florida Advanced Technological Education Center. FLATE is funded by the National Science Foundation and focuses on high-tech workforce development.

The two centers, working together, plan to assess how well the Tampa area's education programs meet the needs of its high tech companies. Then the two will develop a program aimed at increasing the number of students who study the biosciences.

HCC has used the findings so far to develop its new biotechnology education curriculum. It's going to be rigorous, "very heavy in biology and chemistry," Wilson said.

Students "are going to have to be on top of their game to be successful in the program, but it will open a lot of doors for them."

Students will have the knowledge to continue their science education at a university or go to work in a laboratory, she said.

To learn more about the BITT/FLATE project, go to www.fl-ate.org.