Biomanufacturing Consortium for Analytics and Data Engineering (BioCAD) Expansion

BioCAD Expansion is a collaborative technical training program replication and expansion effort centered on the West Coast. It will develop and offer mezzanine-level training modules.

Project status

100% Completed

Industry Need

The biopharmaceutical industry would benefit from an incumbent workforce that is better prepared to accelerate the digital transformation in biomanufacturing by applying complex manufacturing, operations, and supply chain data to optimize biopharmaceutical production.

Solution

The Biomanufacturing Consortium for Analytics and Data engineering (BioCAD) Expansion is a collaborative technical training program replication and expansion effort centered on the West Coast.

The proposed 18-month project recruits additional team members and builds upon a NIIMBL-funded workforce training pilot launched in 2020.

Growing from 14 hours of existing introductory content, the BioCAD Expansion will:

Develop and offer mezzanine-level training modules—between professional development and academic offerings—targeting scientists, manufacturing engineers, process development engineers, and operations specialists (not trained data scientists).
Package modules for asynchronous and hybrid delivery and integration into different employee learning contexts, focusing on active-learning strategies that empower participants to apply knowledge and practice data programming skills on realistic problems.
Scaffold 26 additional hours of primer, introductory, and intermediate training content in bioprocessing, operations, and supply chain analytics.
Test training modules by approximately 150 incumbent workers and collegiate students in multiple corporate and academic contexts.

Outputs/Deliverables

OUTPUTS

Content produced includes approximately 25 hours of modularized, professionally recorded video tutorials, datasets, data programming practice problems, and industry expert panels and spotlight videos.
Using some of the content from these courses, the team piloted in-person boot camps for community college, undergraduate, and high school students and instructors.
BioCAD course content was also leveraged to host a small Python training workshop for a few high school instructors from the Alameda School District who are interested in utilizing similar content in their biology, computer science, and data analytics courses.

Impacts

Designed, tested, and delivered a virtual asynchronous training program in data programming for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, inclusive of four introductory and intermediate courses

Introduced the analysis of upstream and downstream processes as well as business operations and supply chain topics. It is targeted to industry professionals in non-data-science roles across bioprocess development, manufacturing engineering, scientific, and business operations roles.

Also the first program of its kind that teaches Python specifically for a biomanufacturing or bioprocessing context outside of university courses.

Piloted via a low-cost online learning platform with more than 70 collegiate and incumbent worker participants enrolling in the program (a public launch is planned in late 2023 with an additional four hours of recorded expert panels, statistical analysis tutorials, and introductory biomanufacturing content).

Publications

Fu, Q., Lee, Y. S., Green, E. A., Wang, Y., Park, S. Y., Polanco, A., Lee, K. H., Betenbaugh, M., McNally, D., & Yoon, S. (2023). Design space determination to optimize DNA complexation and full capsid formation in transient rAAV manufacturing. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 120(11), 3148-3162. https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.28508

Wang, Y., Fu, Q., Lee, Y. S., Sha, S., & Yoon, S. (2023). Transcriptomic features reveal molecular signatures associated with recombinant adeno-associated virus production in HEK293 cells. Biotechnology Progress, 39(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/btpr.3346

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Project Lead

Santa Clara University

Participating Organizations

Genentech, Inc.

Keck Graduate Institute

Life Science Washington

Oregon Bioscience Association

Pfizer, Inc.