Blogs

The Coalition of State Bioscience Institutes (CSBI) released the 2018 Life Sciences Workforce Trends Report June 5, 2018 at the BIO International Convention held in Boston, Massachusetts June 4-7. The report provides a national snapshot of the current and anticipated talent needs of the nation’s dynamic life science industry.  

The biotech industry continues to be a leading driver of employment across the country, providing 1.73 million jobs in 85,000 companies. In 2017, employers listed almost 264,000 postings for... Read more

The Biology Field of Study (FOS) meeting took place on January 8 & 9, 2018 in Austin, Texas. The report will soon for open for 30 days for public comment. I will update with a link for comment when I get it.

The meeting opened with the charge of the committee and election of the chair and vice chair. Our charge was to identify the courses that should be included in the Biology FOS and to address the TX30X60 Mandate set forth by the state legislature (http://www.thecb.... Read more

It’s a new year and new edition of Nucleic Acids Research’s (NAR’s) Annual Database issue. It’s the 25^th year for the NAR database series, the eighth for FinchTalk, and the first at the new home for Discovering Biology... Read more

Looking for a handy guide to CRISPR technology? A biotech company in Silicon Valley (Redwood City) has a nice eBook. The company is named Synthego Read more

Dr Porter sent me an article on a possible new trend in hiring biotechicians. Companies are now going back to students with a 4 year degree. Interestingly we are seeing the same thing in Austin ---at least in the companies that are being bought by larger companies whose HR are out of state. One of our two year students, Isabel James, is now going back to UT to get her 4 year degree because of this trend. She will find that UT is actually offering less lab instruction in upper division courses -while in the two year ACC Biotech Program we continue to focus on this lab based education and... Read more

One of my favorite things to do in January is review all of the notifications I receive as to what are the topic biotech events or products for the past year. So I thought this year (2018) I would share what I receive. Today, I received one from Technology Networks. https://www.technologynetworks.com/informatics/lists/biggest-news-storie.... Check out the list--I pasted it below.

1. Researchers use MRI to predict autism    

2. Unexpected layer of gene... Read more

@synbiobeta concluded it’s #sbbsf17 annual meeting on synthetic biology Oct 5, 2017. The progress companies are making in harnessing biology as a platform for manufacturing and problem solving is world changing.

What is Synthetic Biology?

Synthetic biology is a term that is used to describe the convergence of biotechnology and engineering. The dramatic cost decreases in our ability to read and write DNA (sequence and synthesize), combined with increasing capabilities in automation and informatics has catalyzed a new sub-industry within biotechnology.... Read more