Biotechnology in the next 100 years will be about one thing; solving the issues caused by population growth.
Biotechnologists will have to work out how to produce more food in the coming decades than has been produced previously in the whole of agriculture’s 20,000 year history. This will need to be achieved with less viable land, less production of waste and pollution than ever before, and with increasingly efficient energy generation methods.
Biotechnologists will ask, and solve, the biggest questions of society. They will need to be well trained scientifically, but equally innovative and able to get their ideas to market quickly. Pressing demand for solutions require Biotech practitioners to be familiar with science fields such as genetic engineering, environmental analysis, synthetic organisms and commercialisation, as well as keeping abreast of global issues and customs. It is an exciting time to be training in this area!
In order to meet the rising need for biotechnologists in Western Australia the idea for a Masters in Biotechnology was put forward in 2013. After a national and international review of similar courses it became apparent that many courses did not seem fit for purpose when considering the two main foundations of biotechnology.
Fundamentally, biotechnology is about Science and Business in balance and in partnership. UWA has this mix exactly right. As stated above, business will be the main conduit for getting Biotech solutions to market, but those solutions will be rooted in good science. We designed the Biotechnology course from new with this ethos; now students are taught core units in both the Faculties of Science and ABLE within the Business School.
Both Science and Business have equal ownership of the course. It is a novel approach that generates graduates prepared for careers in research labs and who acutely understand the commercial aspects of industry, from protecting their research ideas to setting up their own spinout companies. We make no apologies for stretching the students with cross discipline learning, and by graduation they all thoroughly appreciate their multi-disciplinary experiences. They certainly leave with advanced skills to adapt into many biotechnology careers in research and the private sector.
All the lecturers on the course are world class in their own right, from academics in Agriculture and Environment, through Molecular Sciences and from within the Business School. Interestingly, we have a high proportion of very senior academics who teach this course who impart a lot of real world experience. These lecturers are complemented by our engagement with external contacts and industry leaders, culminating in a knowledge bank that covers a broad range of areas including business and research into emerging technologies.
External companies come into the course and our students work with them on real world business needs in Biotech, so this gives us a current and up to date ‘finger on the pulse’ and ensures our graduates understand current market priorities.
The Master of Biotechnology exemplifies what excites me about UWA. I was given huge freedom to develop the course from the ground up, based on a very brief ‘brief’! The excitement came from generating the concept for the course structure and being able to ask the question – ‘Would I do this course?’ Interestingly, I came from a research only background in the U.K. and this was my first course design, so I guess I was slightly naïve. Ultimately this was advantageous as I did not harbor any preconceived ideas of what ‘could not be done’. I just knocked on people’s doors and very quickly found a whole range of like-minded academics that have become similarly enthused by the ideas.
It was, and still is, a real pleasure working with them as we evolve the course. UWA always seems to have a forward thinking senior academic leadership that are willing to try new ideas and concepts, Biotechnology being a great example. There were several alliances that we made which are still considered pretty novel outside of UWA, but now seem standard to us on the course. For example, many other universities comment on how innovative it was that we got Science and Business to work together fully. My response is that to generate the course all we did was innovate and put the ‘product’ out there, which is nothing more and nothing less than what we ask of our graduates.
A critical aspect of our teaching is working with real world problems through our business partners. We are always on the lookout for partners to come into the course and work with us and the students, either as part of their biotechnology field of commerce or research. I would welcome any contacts or companies to contact us and help us enhance the biotechnology experience further.