Two outstanding interns graced the labs of BioBuilder this summer and we just have to tell you about them!
Shakhi Andrews
Shakhi is no stranger to BioBuilder. Shakhi completed the High School Apprenticeship Challenge in 2022, and later that year was invited back to participate in a BioBuilder gathering at the Learning Lab @Ginkgo.
Featured guests were Congressman Jake Auchincloss (U.S. House of Representatives for Massachusetts) and Ginkgo Bioworks’ CEO Jason Kelly. A strong proponent of both life sciences and education, Rep. Auchincloss came to discuss the importance of developing talent for the bioeconomy and to learn more about BioBuilder’s programs that are doing just that. Shakhi and their fellow students were thrilled to be part of the discussion!
This year Shakhi returned to BioBuilder during their summer break to “pay it forward” by supporting current BioBuilder students along their own biotech journeys.
Shakhi was with BioBuilder at the Learning Lab @Allston Labworks where they helped teach and support the Summer Research Program students as they worked on their research projects.
Watch Shakhi reflect on the summer internship here:
Shakhi is currently a student at Case Western Reserve University where they are studying molecular biology. We hope to see them back at BioBuilder again whenever their academic schedule allows!
Many thanks to the Massachusetts Life Science Center‘s support of Shakhi through the internship program!
Eric Bueno
Eric Bueno completed a 12-week internship at BioBuilder this summer. Eric is a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University where he conducts his research in the Dunlop Lab.
Eric was kept busy those 12 weeks helping with three important BioBuilder projects.
Listen to Eric reflect on his summer internship here:
Transfyr Partnership
A partnership between BioBuilder and Transfyr, a Boston-based AI and life science technology company, is aimed at creating an AI-enabled hands-on biotechnology training and credentialing system for Massachusetts high school students.
Read more about the partnership and its important goals here.
Eric integrated Transfyr’s benchtop AI observatory into BioBuilder’s educational framework at the Learning Lab @Allston Labworks. He then pilot tested it during BioBuilder teacher professional development workshops and the Summer Research Program. The capabilities of this AI enabled tool have the potential to bring microcredentialing opportunities to students nationwide!
Low-cost Spectrophotometer
Spectrophotometers are prohibitively expensive for many classrooms, especially when K-12 biology classes would likely only run a handful of labs using the instrument. The risk of damaging such an expensive piece of equipment further discourages investment.
To help address this problem, Eric worked on the design and testing of a small, simplified, low-cost spectrophotometer that could be used for simple lab experiments. He tested variable chamber configurations to overcome glare, focusing, and other challenges. Perfecting such an instrument will make spectroscopy affordable for educational settings such as high school labs.
Biotech Decision Tree Website
Biotechnology is becoming increasingly relevant in daily life, but classrooms are not keeping up. To address this, Eric adapted the CSforALL framework and drafted a website to help convince educational stakeholders that biotech education matters. The proposed 5 Values capture the reasons why educators should adopt biotech in the classroom:
- Scientific Literacy & Critical Reasoning
- Health & Human Wellbeing
- Workforce Preparation & Opportunity
- Regional Transformation & Economic Growth
- Informed Citizenship & Ethical Reasoning
But wait, there’s more!
Eric also spent one week helping facilitate a Teacher Professional Development Workshop, and two weeks helping with BioBuilder’s Summer Research Program. These experiences impacted Eric’s thinking about the need for solid, hands-on STEM learning for both teachers and those they teach!
These two interns contribute greatly to the success of BioBuilder, teachers, students, and biotech education. Many thanks to both Shakhi and Eric! We know your futures are bright!
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Showcase BioBuilder Partnerships
BioBuilder is fortunate to work with partners who do much more than support our programs. They help us test ideas, expand what works, and show what becomes possible when education, industry, and community partners build together.
This past month, two of those partners released case studies about our collaborative work. They tell very different stories, but both get at the same question: how do we give many more students meaningful access to biotechnology and the skills that can lead somewhere?
One looks at what happens when a skills-based biotechnology curriculum becomes part of a regional workforce strategy. The other asks whether AI can help make individualized, apprenticeship-style laboratory training available at a much greater scale.
Check them out.
From One Classroom to a Regional Biotechnology Pipeline
How BioTechBuilder Is Helping East Tennessee Build the Workforce of Tomorrow
A strong biotechnology workforce does not start when someone applies for a job. It starts much earlier, when students have opportunities to experience the work, build useful skills, and see where those skills might lead.
That idea has been taking shape in East Tennessee for several years. Working with local educators and regional partners, BioBuilder has helped bring biotechnology into the high school experience through BioTechBuilder, our skills-based curriculum designed around the practices students will encounter in real laboratories and workplaces.
Our longtime partner Carolina Biological Supply Company recently took a closer look at that work. Their case study follows the growth of BioTechBuilder in East Tennessee and explores a larger idea: what can happen when biotechnology education is not treated as an isolated classroom experience, but as part of a region’s strategy for building its future workforce?
Read the full case study here.
How to Scale Apprenticeship
Can AI make expert, hands-on science training available to many more people?
Learning to work well in a lab has always depended on apprenticeship. Someone experienced watches what you do, catches the small things a written protocol cannot, and helps you get better.
That model works. It just doesn’t scale very well.
BioBuilder and Transfyr are testing a different possibility: use AI to observe hands-on laboratory work and provide the kind of individualized coaching and assessment that normally requires an expert standing nearby. With nearly $1 million in support from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, we are beginning with high school biotechnology training and skills such as pipetting and aseptic technique, with the larger goal of making rigorous, credentialed laboratory training available to many more learners.
It is one piece of a much bigger question Transfyr is exploring across science: what becomes possible when we can capture not just what scientists were supposed to do, but what they actually did?
Read the case study: How to Scale Apprenticeship