Amazing biotech at high school incubators with Dr. Linnea Fletcher

Dr. Linnea Fletcher is a true pioneer at bridging biotech and education. On the show she explains how high school biotech incubators got started and how others can get involved. She also shares more about the upcoming innovATEBIO conference. 

Dr. Fletcher she simultaneously joined the first National Science Foundation-funded National Biotechnology Education Center, Bio-Link, and received her first NSF-funded Advanced Technological Education grant to start Biotechnology high school programs in Texas. In 2015, she received an Emerging Technology Fund grant to build a Bioscience Incubator at ACC and several Wagner Peyser grants to equip it. Today, the incubator is full of start-up companies and students interning or working for these companies.

About innovATEBIO
www.innovATEBIO.org 
InnovATEBIO, the National Biotechnology Education Center funded by NSF (National Science Foundation). The center was funded 4 years ago at 7.5M for 5 years to coordinate over 134 two-year biotechnology programs and their educational
partners for the purpose of creating a biotechnology workforce focusing on technician education. Every senior scientist needs 5 to 7 technicians for R&D, biomanufacturing and quality assurance and regulatory matters. (National Science Board report 2019). At the moment, there is not enough technicians being produced to meet the needs of the US biotechnology industry.

About Dr. Fletcher
https://innovatebio.org/iab-leadership
Dr. Linnea Fletcher enjoys all forms of exercise but especially biking, hiking, and swimming. Her favorite pastimes are family events in the outdoors and travel. She received her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Texas at Austin, did two postdocs one at the Southwestern Medical Center and another in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Texas. She joined Austin Community College as a Department Chair in Biology and started the Biotechnology Program in 1999. At the same time, she joined the first NSF Funded National Biotechnology Education Center, Bio-Link and received her first NSF funded ATE grant to start Biotechnology high school programs in Texas. She worked as an NSF Program Officer from
2008 to 2010 and was involved setting up the first Vision and Change Meeting. Once back on the job as Biotechnology Department Chair in 2015, she received an Emerging Technology Fund Grant to build a Bioscience Incubator at ACC and several additional grants to equip it. Today the incubator is full of startup companies and students interning or working for these companies. She was PI of the AC2 Bio-Link Regional Center, and is now the PI of InnovATEBIO, the NSF funded National Biotechnology Center. Combining economic development with educational opportunities is her passion. She is also PI and Co-PI on several other grants associated with the work of the center. Linnea Fletcher believes the best way to engage educate students is to involve them in industry projects from high school on –and show them that their education has a purpose and matters—involvement in startup companies does this!

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Music by keldez

Transcript

Meg Sinclair: 0:17

Hello everyone. Uh, welcome to From Lab to Launch by Qualio.. I'm Meg and I'll be your host for today. We're glad you're here. Before we jump in, just a reminder to please rate the show and share it with any of your science or biology nerd friends. We know you have some. Also check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today or request to be on the show. We're very grateful for all the interests this podcast has had lately. Today we have Dr. Linnea Fletcher on the show. Dr. Fletcher received her PhD in microbiology from the University of Texas and joined Austin Community College as the department chair of Biology where she started the biotechnology program in 1999. She's a real pioneer at bridging biotech and education. Simultaneously, Dr. Fletcher joined the First National Science Foundation, funded National Biotechnology Education Center, biolink, and received her first N S F funded Advanced Technology Technological education grant to start a biotechnology high school programs in Texas. In 2015, she received an emerging technology fund grant to built a bioscience incubator at a ACC C and several Wagner Kaiser grants to equipment equipment. Today, the incubator is full of startup companies and students interning or working for these companies. Welcome, Linnea. Thanks for joining us today.

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 1:46

Thank you for having me on your podcast.

Meg Sinclair: 1:49

Okay. To get us started, would you briefly tell us about how you got involved with the biotech program and launching incubators?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 1:57

Well, it was about, um, 20 years ago, two companies from California opened manufacturing sites in Austin. And at the time I did have, um, a. National Science Foundation grant to create biotechnology programs in high school, and I had considered building a program, but with these two companies, there was a reason to start the program and to do this in Texas, it takes about a year to get a program going. And Texas Programs in Workforce require that you do an internship. One thing about our community college, it serves the size of the state of New Jersey and there's like 14 campuses. I started the program at night at one of the campuses cuz I was, I. Educating not only students from the two year program area, but also from the companies and they could only come over at night. Later on I started a day program at another campus with a bond package and I share a lab with the medical technology program, which is kind of interesting cuz we do overlap. We always say that my students create the products that M l T students are using. So we tend to learn from each other. At this point, my program, um, has about 12 students in a class no larger than that. So it's, we can really watch students and they can master the equipment they're using. And a lot of the projects that we have in the program are from industry. They're industry based, or they're doing undergraduate research. The one thing we like to do with our students is to get'em involved with industry right from the beginning. So that's when I started getting involved with startups because we had a lot of startups in Austin, and it was in my best interest to get more companies on board because then I needed to place more students. So we started to, uh, do company projects, especially when the companies got to see our state-of-the-art facility at the new campus. So they wanted to use our equipment and then they also needed our students because they were very short on workforce. So essentially what they would do is they would teach the internship course and they would provide supplies. And have'em work on company projects. And we started to collect data about how this accelerated product development and decreased costs. And at the same time, I ended up on the Governor's Bioscience Council. And when the governor's office realized what we were doing, they said to us, well, you should start an incubator because essentially you're helping startups. But it took about six years because the idea of a. Two year school, a community college. Having an incubator was a foreign idea to a lot of the, uh, emerging technology, um, group, especially, um, some of the universities. And they didn't really think it was a good idea. But after six years and the fact you'll like this, my chancellor bought a mall, so I had a space. So the incubators I believe in Dillards are what used to be Dillards and. With that happening, we had the incubator started, and as you already said, we had to get two more grants for equipment. And that incubator, um, is full and it is a requirement that students be part of the incubator. So that's how essentially we ended up with the a ACC Bioscience incubator. Now, this idea has been done at several other community colleges, and I should tell you that. No discussion of IP occurs because our chancellor does not want to put on another layer of administration trying to deal with ip, which is a great boon for all these startups because they don't have to worry about anyone asking for ip. And the other thing that's really good is the fact that since it combines economic development with education, both sectors are getting a win-win.

Meg Sinclair: 6:30

That's fascinating. I love this symbiosis between industry and education. I think that makes a a great, um. Process and improvement in the industry. I also think after Covid we see a lot of, you know, wanting to bring our supply chains locally. So I feel like this is a great segue into that. How do you encourage high school students and young professionals to get interested in biotech and life sciences?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 6:57

Well, the best approach is to get them involved immediately in what's real. It's not a textbook, it's the lab. And it's not just a lab, it is industry. So having them work on industry-based projects where they feel like they're making a difference is the way to get them engaged. And I'll tell you, the companies in the incubator were really surprised. At the skill level of high school students and the two year students and once they realized that they could actually integrate them into their labs and working on projects, they started to incorporate'em in all different aspects, including even innovation and part of the project development. And that is the best way to engage students is to get them involved right off the be at the start in the real world. A textbook just puts them to sleep. Absolutely.

Meg Sinclair: 7:53

Um, can you tell us about the innovation and solutions you're seeing at the bioscience in incubator?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 8:00

Well, you know, it was pretty amazing to me in that at first we had thought that students would only be involved in internships, but that's such a short period of time. It's like 16 to 20 weeks. Then the incubator realized they needed a training program for students. So instead of. Having them decide how to train students. They actually took the first group of students, they came up with the training protocols to train the next group of students. So then they started to overlap the cohorts of students. And then they thought instead of waiting till the internships, well, why don't they hire them when they're in their first year? Because then they would get'em for at least two years. And, and that way those students even grew more. By doing that cuz an internship was such a short period of time. The other thing that was really good, which is what we were really hoping for is that the companies when they graduated from the incubator, because the incubator only lets them stay there from like one to two years, is that when they moved out, then they would hire our students because they realized that two year students could do the job. They didn't have to have a four year degree. Now, I should tell you at this point my program, 50% of my students have a four year degree. And the reason is after 20 years, the companies in the area now tell four year students to go get that advanced certificate from a community college down the street. That's amazing.

Meg Sinclair: 9:39

And what percentage of your students, um, get hired on by those companies following. Those internships?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 9:45

Oh my gosh. Working for the incubators? Well, right now, a hundred percent. Wow. Because we can't meet the demands. In fact, we are very similar to programs across the nation, and there's like 130, uh, two year programs across the nation. Is that the demand for workforce even without. The pandemic was going to increase dramatically because of all the advances in biotech. Immunotherapy has really upped the requirement for technicians, um, the crossover into medical devices, and then of course the vaccine development. Pretty much there isn't, uh, the workforce need is great as in biotechnology.

Meg Sinclair: 10:37

You alluded to this a little bit there, but you've been doing this since 1999. How has the interest in biosciences changed over that course of time?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 10:47

It has increased dramatically. Um, in fact, I would say over the past year and a half, there's a tsunami of high schools who want to start biotechnology programs that we are trying to help and. The public is more interested. Now, I have to admit, a lot of it is they're concerned. They're worried about biotech now. They're worried about vaccine development. They're worried about how innovation is done, and I think this is the time that we really need to step up and provide that information. And the fact that. Not because they're interested in vaccine production, now they're looking at everything else too. We need to provide that information, but it's hard because it's still, I still do with a problem in high school where parents still think their child should be an md. They think that's the only career in Biosciences or maybe going to research. But I'll tell you, they don't know what research means and. So there's still that antiquated idea that the only career in bioscience or a related area is to be an md, and that's not true. There are a lot of great careers and a lot of my two-year students go on to great career paths. They don't stop at just being a technician. They continue to grow in the company because the company, once they realize how good this person is, they're willing to promote them. Regardless of the degree.

Meg Sinclair: 12:29

That's terrific. What are the recent trends and needs of the biotech industry that you're seeing?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 12:35

Oh, um, this is real. That's an interesting question. Um, my center is supposed to be an umbrella organization, which means that it's supposed to be an umbrella for all the emerging trends, which, you know, is going to be an impossibility. But, and along those lines, trying to keep up with ai, which is gonna play a huge role. Um, cybersecurity is changing because, uh, with d n a sequencing, the amount of information that's being generated just on a personal level, um, it data sets the dataset are increasing dramatically, and then it's how it's converging with other areas such as nanotechnology. Um, marine science, climate change is now being. They realize that there are gonna be biotech solutions for climate change. And then if you look at some of the manufacturing institutes who we work with, like bio made and nimble, well Bioindustrial, you know, now you're, they have simulated leather from mushroom mycelium. Do you know that Stellar McCarthy has a product line with mushroom mycelium for leather purses? I did not, but now I will be checking it out. It's very expensive. I checked it out. I'm sure. So I mean, all these different areas, it's all bio-based, which means it's going to be sustainable. And so the emergence, and now I'm working with process technology programs that realize that they're training for the oil and gas industry is going to essentially be also applicable to large scale bioindustrial, which is chemical.

Meg Sinclair: 14:24

Sounds like the sky's the limit as far as the future of biotechnology.

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 14:28

It is. I can't wait. As we continue to go into like the solar systems, what we're gonna be able to see, they're already discovering some things on Mars that essentially bio-based, possibly fascinating.

Meg Sinclair: 14:46

Um, what are some obstacles or headwinds you see in the industry? You see the industry will face in the future?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 14:54

Well, one thing is I feel that industry and education need to be all on the same page. Instead of reinventing the wheel, you know, there's getting from from point A to point B. A lot of things have already been shown to work. It's just that they don't do a good job of communication. So within industry themselves, and education and nonprofits and all the other organizations, instead of thinking they're the first ones. To come up with an idea. They really need to do a better job of researching what's already out there and not reinvent the wheel. I think that's gonna be true for creating the workforce. I think that's gonna be true also for creating products. They're gonna be, they're gonna have to be better at making deals. That's a great insight.

Meg Sinclair: 15:49

I like that. All rowing the boat in the same direction and working together. Yeah. Great. There's an upcoming summit you're involved with? Yes. Called, yes, innovate Bios Summit. Can you tell us more about this event and its purpose?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 16:03

Right, so we're in year four of our center grant, and after the past four years, the same problems for creating the workforce are still there. And also the fact that. As a result of the pandemic and other emerging trends, that there's it's acceleration of how we're gonna be able to create this workforce and meet the emerging trends needed a face-to-face meeting, and it needed all the parties to be there. And had to be in DC because government needs to be part of this because there's going to have to be things in policy that need to be changed to accelerate development of workforce and what we're gonna be doing in this industry. And it is, supply chain issues are really important. So we're gonna have this bioscience summit. It's gonna focus on the envisioning of the next workforce in the biotechnology area. Day one, we have a fantastic panel of experts, so CEOs, individuals who are leading the charge in the industry, and also community college education to share what are some of their best practices and where we should be going. And we're having it at the National Academy of Science, and we've invited government, so there'll be education, industry, nonprofits, everyone is going to come to this. On the second day, we've been preparing state teams of individuals that include industry education, um, bio state organizations and nonprofits to work together. Ahead of time to learn about each other for the purpose of coming up with common challenges that together, if they work together, that they could solve for creating the workforce. 19 state teams are gonna come in on, they're gonna be there for day one, but then on day two they're gonna work. They're gonna work on identifying a common challenge, identify action plans to overcome common challenges. For creating that bioscience workforce in their state, and they seem to be really excited about it. So we're calling that right now. They're in the journey to the summit. And then after the summit, we're going to continue the journey. Journey because then hopefully I'll get the next grant for another five years. And let's see what we can do by doing it state by state, because you need to do that because each state. Has their own ideas and policies and they all need to work together.

Meg Sinclair: 18:57

I can't wait to see what comes from that summit. That sounds like exciting work to be done. How can others get involved or look to start their own incubators at their colleges?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 19:09

Well, um, One, if they want to know about our incubator, the um, a c bioscience incubator, they can go to the webpage. They can Google a ACC bioscience incubator. Nancy Line is the director, or we also have a report available at the Innovate Bio site. And I don't know, should I share that website or do you share it?

Meg Sinclair: 19:33

Yeah, we can add those to the show notes at the end.

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 19:35

Okay. Anyway, um, Google, if you Google Innovate bio, you'll find our website and the summit, but anyone on the leadership team can help. That's part of our job is to help people start incubators and programs at the community college. Do you do that at the high school level as well? Yes. And there are some incubators. There's one in Utah that is at the high school level. Fascinating.

Meg Sinclair: 20:06

Um, switching gears a little bit, if you could go back and tell yourself something about something at the start of your career,

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 20:13

what would it have been? It would've been the same advice that I'm giving right now is that you should have looked at all the careers you could have done in the biosciences. And maybe you didn't need a PhD. Now I'm glad I got my PhD cuz at the time you, it was easier with a PhD. And I do love lab, but you know, I was supposed to be, I'd gone to R one universities and they constantly say to you, well then you have to stay at an R one university, which is a research university. You cannot end up at a four year liberal school or anything. And I realized that because of my interest in education, that I'm glad I went to the community college, but I could have also ended up at a four year, uh, liberal arts school. But, you know, everybody's advice. I was listening to one road only and I didn't realize at the time they were mini roads, and it wasn't until later on in life. I realized how many roads I could have taken and been totally happy in them as long as it was science.

Meg Sinclair: 21:26

I can relate to that. Um, finding quality a little later in my career myself. I thought at health I needed to be a nurse, so I had started my career there and, you know, moved around. So I can relate to that. Um, last fun question.

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 21:43

Where would we find you in a bookstore like Barnes and Noble? You know, I, I love that question. Um, so one of my husbands and my favorite dates is to go out to eat and go to Barnes and Noble. So depending on what I'm interested in, um, right now after going to Scotland, I'm reading history about Scotland. Um, but I have to say my favorite section is either science fiction or fantasy. I so enjoy it because, You know, it's kind of interesting when you, especially when you read science fiction, we get closer and closer to it.

Meg Sinclair: 22:20

Yes, it does seem that way. With AI and, and biomaterial on Mar Isol seems like it's coming closer and closer. I agree. Um, so where can folks learn more and follow along with what you're up to, Linnea?

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 22:35

Well, I have a Facebook page associated with Innovate Bio. A lot of people like the Facebook page associated with our center, better than the website. And um, in fact, when people have some ideas, um, we. Like an education or industry, we encourage them to post it at the Facebook page because people will look at it and they will reply. So we get a lot of informal conversations that way. So, um, I think that's the best way to go myself or pay attention to the website cuz we do try to keep everything up to date on what we're doing.

Meg Sinclair: 23:16

Well, I'll be following along to see which you all are up to. It sounds fascinating and really exciting to grow this new workforce. Thanks for joining us today, Linnea.

Dr. Linnea Fletcher: 23:27

Thank you so much for letting me share.