Across New England, medical innovation flourishes. Boston’s rich hub of industry professionals has endeared the region as a capital of life sciences and biotechnology. Maintaining a strong foundation of qualified professionals is key to pushing scientific boundaries, and so is mentoring the next generation.

In the labs

In Cambridge, Mass., the lauded universities loom and household pharmaceutical and biotech companies dominate day-to-day life. Students, researchers, and CEOs alike all form an international nexus of innovative research.

LabCentral, a nonprofit organization founded in November 2013, offers its network of fully permitted laboratory spaces for over 100 biotech startups. Their collective workforce can be as many as 1,000 scientists. But their focus isn’t just on the now; it’s also on mentoring and increasing access to underrepresented students and researchers.

“If you have not been exposed to [biotech] at an early age or had parents or mentors in that industry, you wouldn’t be aware that it’s a career path,” says LabCentral CEO Maggie O’Toole. “If there aren’t people that look like you doing those things, you don’t necessarily think that’s a space you can go into.”

“If you have not been exposed to [biotech] at an early age or had parents or mentors in that industry, you wouldn’t be aware that it’s a career path.”
– LabCentral CEO Maggie O’Toole

To facilitate access to those spaces, LabCentral has a trio of mentorship programs. “What the Heck is Biotech?” is a more interactive, hands-on workshop experience geared toward younger learners. “Biotech Ready” (formerly known as Career Forge), is a micro-credentialing program providing targeted training and performance evaluations for college students pursuing degrees and careers in the sciences. LabCentral also provides “Golden Tickets” for funding and access for the next generation of biotech companies with high-potential founders.

“I was surrounded by a lot of science growing up,” says Kelton Nguyen, a participant in Biotech Ready. Currently specializing in synthetic biology, he is the first scientist in his family. His earliest exposure to the field was through television programs like Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

To Nguyen, it seems easy for younger researchers to worry about how science could start to go backward.

“The LabCentral team really thinks about protecting the future,” he says. “Investing in the younger generation and exposing people to biotech at a younger age can really prep them for overcoming whatever misconceiving notions they may have about the ultimate goals of [the industry].”

Myshelle Barron, another member of Biotech Ready, first felt inspired by the sciences in high school. After her brothers had unsatisfying experiences with prescribed medication, she felt a stronger calling to alleviate experiences like theirs. At LabCentral, she researches sustained drug releases in vaccines.

Now, she sees technology advancing at a rapid rate — a reality of a world where scientific progress has never been more fast paced.

“With biotech, it’s important for us to use that technology to help improve human life,” she says. “It can be scary to think of AI as something that will take jobs away, but if we’re able to use it to help the next generation, we may be able to have a better life.”

For Barron, the future of biotech resembles an industry where the betterment of humanity is championed and barriers for underrepresented demographics are broken down.

“I hope to see more women of color in the field,” she says. “At least where I work, it can be very male dominated. It’s really up to us to change how we think, raise our children, view the world, and adapt our technologies to help us live.”

“[The industry] can be very male dominated. It’s really up to us to change how we think, raise our children, view the world, and adapt our technologies to help us live.”
– Myshelle Barron, Biotech Ready member

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In the universities

It’s hard to imagine a more direct pipeline to mentoring and instilling general industry knowledge than academia.

Boston University is one such institution that has created a way to ensure its students are receiving direct mentorship and benefiting from their academic incubation periods. At BU’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Drs. Hui Feng and Venetia Zachariou are the latest researchers taking part in the school’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)-funded project, “Training in Biomolecular Pharmacology.”

“We try to teach them how to think like researchers,” Zachariou says. “What is it like to be a reviewer? How is it like to give a presentation, critique others, and network?” The program’s predoctoral trainees work across various scientific fields and methodologies, and are taught how to prepare for policy changes and complex interactions with industry players.

To best prepare for whichever specialty they might choose, trainees cycle through combinations of pharmacology with chemistry, structural and cell biology, biomedical engineering, biochemistry, and more. Mentoring is also accompanied by seminars from accomplished scientists.

At Northeastern University, outreach is one of the key components in bringing in the next bright minds. Its Biotech A2M Scholars program, an accelerated learning pathway between the university and Middlesex Community College, is designed to bridge the gap between associate’s and master’s degrees.

“Most people don’t know how to enter biotech,” says Jared Auclair, dean of the College of Professional Studies and director of the A2M program. “If I go to a dining room table and ask how to become a doctor, most people can probably say how to do that. That’s not the reality with biotech.”

The A2M program includes a dedicated support team providing students with personalized guidance and a pathway to Northeastern’s accelerated PlusOne master’s degree.

“When we proposed it people laughed,” Auclair says.

There was doubt that a collaboration between two different colleges could happen. But now, the two years students spend earning their associate’s degree count toward a bachelor’s. It’s an accelerated process designed for students who may not realize they have the ability to attend schools like Northeastern.

When the program first began in 2013, it had a graduation rate of roughly 65 percent. Auclair joined in 2016, and now the rate is in the low 90s. Plenty of those graduates started the program feeling as if they don’t belong.

“The data shows that if you see somebody in the industry that looks like you, it goes a long way in building confidence in your abilities,” Auclair says. “Each person has a different lived experience. You need that diversity of thought and experience to drive creativity, innovation, and to help patients around the world.”

“The data shows that if you see somebody in the industry that looks like you, it goes a long way in building confidence in your abilities.”
– Jared Auclair, dean of the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern

Not only are high school students in Massachusetts gaining hands-on experience across different fields of medicine and biotech, they’re receiving mentorship from industry veterans that understand the importance of building confidence and trust.

And that’s a sentiment that’s shared in the Commonwealth’s flagship medical school, too.

In the medical schools

Dr. Mark Johnson, the chair of neurological surgery at UMass Chan Medical School, has seen firsthand the importance of guiding young professionals.

“There is a tremendous need for mentors,” Johnson said. “They’re different from advisors, as mentors are more engaged, in your corner, and actively rooting for you.”

“There is a tremendous need for mentors. They’re different from advisors, as mentors are more engaged, in your corner, and actively rooting for you.”
– Dr. Mark Johnson, the chair of neurological surgery at UMass Chan Medical School

His road to becoming a leading figure in neurology was paved in part by a series of industry professionals taking him under their wings.

At first, Johnson learned the research ropes from a pair of Harvard-based mentors, but he also recalls learning something more intangible: kindness.

“David Potter, a brilliant scientist, helped me during some difficult times,” he says.

Johnson had to travel across the country to interview for neurosurgery residencies, and Potter provided him financial assistance to get around. “He never asked for it back,” Johnson says. “It made such an impression on me, and of course allowed me to eventually become a neurosurgeon.”

Now, Johnson pays it forward. In 2021, he helped create the Leadership Institute for Growth, Health, and Transformation (LIGHT) at Chan. Founded to promote burgeoning careers and create opportunities for personal and professional development, it consists of over 100 volunteer faculty members and nearly 200 students.

“I’ve mentored many of them personally,” Johnson says. “Some have gone on to become neurosurgeons like myself, others to do research in many different laboratories and publish in high-impact journals.”

To Johnson, the perception of opportunity gaps can form in the minds of young industry hopefuls if they don’t see the pathways early enough. When those preconceived notions are compounded with impending stressors that come with medical school, it can create doubts.

“Medical school is an experience filled with both wonder and anxiety,” Johnson says. “If you don’t have a perspective and understand that it’s part of the process, sometimes it’s easy to feel that one doesn’t have what it takes.”

A bright future

Many of the Commonwealth’s leading figures in science and technology see the importance of mentoring the next generation. But applying those efforts is a step in itself and, as of now, there are a plethora of ongoing efforts dedicated toward the future of medicinal and biotechnology experts.

“We need to provide them with optimal opportunities so they can contribute the most that they are capable of,” says Johnson. “Guidance, advice, and resources should give them the tools that they need to do the work that we — the American public and the rest of the world — need them to do.”