VGCC Students Board the Bio-Bus
Vance-Granville Community College students in the Bioprocess Technology program got the chance to learn in the nation’s only mobile laboratory designed to offer biotechnology-related training: the NC BioNetwork’s Mobile Laboratory – also called the BioNetworkBus – when it visited the main campus on Oct. 4.
VGCC Bioprocess Technology program head Christine Klahn’s students conducted procedures much like those they would perform in the workplace, paying close attention to detail and working to minimize the potential for contamination. The mobile lab’s on-board instructor, Scott Hallam, led VGCC students through two experiments — one to inoculate a culture with a non-virulent form of E. Coli, grow it over three hours and graph the cell growth, and another to take an existing culture of many kinds of bacteria and feed it a diet to see which types of bacteria grew best on the media.
The mobile laboratory is one element of BioNetwork’s comprehensive plan to develop a world-class workforce for North Carolina’s life science industries. The North Carolina Community College System’s BioNetwork is a statewide initiative that connects community colleges across North Carolina, providing specialized training, curricula and equipment. All community colleges serving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, including VGCC, are part of the BioNetwork. More information is available on the BioNetwork website (www.ncbionetwork.org/).
VGCC’s Bioprocess Technology curriculum is designed to prepare individuals to work as Process Operators in biological products manufacturing facilities. Students will combine basic science and communication skills, manufacturing technologies, and good manufacturing practices in the course of the study. Upon successful completion of the two-year program, individuals should possess the necessary skills to qualify for employment in a variety of Bioprocessing industries.
Above: VGCC student Robin Richardson of Henderson conducts part of an experiment on board the BioNetworkBus, as instructor Scott Hallam and other students look on. (VGCC photo)
