Below is a transcript of a conversation with Drs Cynthia Damer and Michelle Steinhilb:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. The field of biotechnology has many applications, including health and medicine; think vaccines and drug treatments, food, and agriculture, such as making our crops more disease resistant, in the environment with microbes being used to clean up pollution or to make biofuels and even in everyday household products and skin care products. With demand, you look for the supply. In fall 2024 saw the launch of a specific biotech major at Central Michigan University. Dr. Cynthia Daimer and Michelle Steinhilber are professors from CMU's Department of Biology. We sat down in studio and Cynthia began with the numbers associated with the demand for biotech...
Cynthia Damer:
The biotech industry is a growing industry, and we have in Michigan over 1800 biotech companies and say 44,000 jobs in biotech. And so, we already had many of the classes and so we wanted to structure a major around that that would give the students what they needed to get a job and one of the things we did was we created a biotech advisory board with people who are in the industry and we consulted with them. We looked at what are the, we asked them, what are the skills these students need and then we designed our curriculum around that.
DN:
The one teaching that class is you, Dr. Michelle Steinhilb. And what is the adaptation off of what was being taught that you're now covering in this class with your students?
Michelle Steinhilb:
Yeah, this is an excellent opportunity for students to gain these hands-on skills. So, this is something that our biotech advisory committee said was really important and so really learning skills, not only on how to do specific laboratory techniques. So, we do things with proteins and nucleic acids, but we also helped to build both written and oral communication skills. In addition to some of those other soft skills that biotechnology people are looking for, so things like teamwork and problem solving, so the the basis for the classes students actually synthesize and purify an enzyme called Taq polymerase, and that enzyme is critical for the process of PCR, which as it turns out for anyone who's had a COVID test and took an PCR test, know that it's a vital part of that test that's used to diagnose people with COVID.
DN:
And Doctor Damer, you talked about some potentially 44,000 openings for jobs and so forth. When we look at (at) the startup of a program, how many students could come in to specifically go into this field? And from that, do you see the potential where it could grow?
CD:
From there, we had a goal of enrolling 10 students this year because it was new and students were just learning about it, and we actually have 10 students. So, we do see it growing, but we don't see it. We don't think that it will be as big as maybe our biomedical major for students who are pre health. Part of the reason is that these classes are very, very small because we are teaching these hands on skills like using, you know, half million dollar pieces of equipment and instruments that there's only one of and so if each student's going to get time on the instrument, we can't have that many students in those classes at a time. So, the classes are all going to be small, so we don't see it becoming very large. I would say somewhere between 40 and 50 students.
DN:
So, as we look at the growth of the field, Michelle and the grants to keep up with demands on (on) equipment and an ever-changing field and so forth from your perspective, where is the the backing and the support of the university at this point?
MS:
Yeah, the the university has been really supportive, especially, for example, in biology, we were recently approved to hire a new person whose area of interest is in biotechnology. So, we'll get a new faculty line for someone in our department to bring their own research program, but then would also be able to participate in teaching in this new biotechnology major with some of our courses.
DN:
This program is launched now fall 2024, and two professors from the department, Dr. Cynthia Dahmer, Dr. Michelle Steinfeld. Thanks very much. Congratulations on the startup getting this off the ground and continued success as it grows from here. We appreciate your time. Thank you.
CD and MS:
Thank you. Thank you!
