Biotech Ready

What are the potential career opportunities for your students in biotech? 

Melanie Berkmen: Boston is the largest supercluster of biotech in the world. There are more than 1,000 biotech companies in the Boston area, and more than 100 teams working at LabCentral.  

Celeste Peterson: Many of our alumni work in biotech, including almost a third of our recent biology graduates. A number of them are lab technicians. They might work in research and development, operations, quality control, vaccine development, or gene therapy.  

What skills are biotechs looking for in new grads? 

MB: They want to see hands-on experience in the lab. But they also are looking for students who are professional and know how to present themselves and communicate. 

How will participating in Biotech Ready help students? 

CP: It’s essentially a bridge program, where students can take the skills that they learn at Suffolk and transfer them to an industry setting. They’ll spend three intensive weeks over the course of the year completing rigorous training modules, and also networking and polishing their presentation skills so they’re more prepared to apply for internships and jobs when they finish. 

MB: The other huge plus is that after they go through the training at LabCentral, they will be tested and can earn credentials. A lot of the training that LabCentral has developed was in direct response to feedback from the biotech companies they work with on what they want to see from new grads. The testing and microcredentials signal to those companies that they can trust that our students’ skills are solid.  

What makes Suffolk students a great fit for this program? 

CP: Our students come to Boston because it’s a really exciting place for science. Suffolk is ideally located between the area’s two biotech hotspots—Kendall Square in Cambridge and the Seaport District—so students can do internships during the year, many of which are paid for through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center’s internship program.  

MB: Our programs are focused on hands-on skills. We pair most of our science courses with three- to four-hour weekly labs. Our students are not just reading the cookbook. They’re going into the kitchen and they’re scrambling some eggs, right? So when they go to LabCentral, they’ll be highly prepared and ready to learn even more advanced skills and get those finishing touches to help them succeed.