BU selected to start life science training program in fall semester

A biomedical science training program is set to launch at Boston University’s Metropolitan College in the fall, officials said.

BU is one of several training partners selected by the Metro Boston Skilled Careers in Life Sciences initiative to run the BioScience Academy program, said research assistant professor Connie Phillips.

Phillips, director of the program, said officials are preparing two courses to be approved by the MET Academic Policy Committee. They began developing recruitment materials, planning open houses for the potential students’ career centers and gathering the application materials.

“Our goal is to train people who have a minimum of two years of education in what’s called the STEM discipline: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math,” Phillips said in a phone interview.

The BioScience Academy was allotted $1.4 million for its two-semester program to train unemployed and underemployed residents in Greater Boston, according to a March 12 statement on MET’s website.

The funding stems from a four-year, $5 million grant the City of Boston received from the U.S. Department of Labor to grow and maintain the area’s life sciences workforce, a March 7 Boston Redevelopment Authority press release stated.

The program, which is mainly laboratory-based, will put its funds toward laboratory equipment, teaching assistants and instructors, Phillips said.

BioScience Academy students will take two of the new MET courses in the fall and an existing course in the evening during the spring semester, while working at an internship during the day.

Matt Bruce, program planner at the Boston Office of Jobs and Community Services, selected BU as one of the principal training partners in the city-wide initiative.

“The money allotted for internships will go through the [Massachusetts Life Sciences Center] internship program, so BU students will certainly be eligible, and BU students have used internships in the past,” Bruce said in an email interview.

However, he said internships will not be specifically set aside for BU students.

The grant is part of the Metro Boston Skilled Careers in Life Sciences initiative, which was established so Boston employers will start looking for employees in Boston’s talent pool rather than bringing in foreign help, said BRA spokeswoman Melina Schuler.

A focus of the initiative will be to provide industry specific job training for 360 metro Boston residents, according to the press release. The initiative will focus on supporting 300 internships to post-secondary students.

Upon completion, the students will receive 12 undergraduate credits from MET College, according to to the MET College’s written statement. The credits can be applied toward a bachelor’s degree and help certificate graduates secure jobs in a Boston-area biotech company, hospital or research lab.

Phillips said the program is similar to CityLab Academy, a program at the School of Medicine.

“It’s different because it’s entry level, although we do get a lot of really experienced, educated students in that program,” she said. “We’ve actually been looking and quoting CityLab Academy students as success stories from our job training.”

Reagan Francis, a current student out of Roxbury in the CityLab Academy, just finished an internship and said the program is helping him to get a better grasp of science concepts.

“[CityLab Academy] is going to inspire me to continue to take classes and get my bachelor’s degree,” Francis said in a phone interview. “It’ll help me work in a lab and get my foot in the door, and I will continue taking classes because I am inspired to take [them].”

Chris Gaquin, 48, of West Roxbury, completed CityLab Academy and went on to work at OPK Biotech in Cambridge.

“It’s . . . great they’re expanding on it, the program that is, because our country in general really needs more well trained people,” Gaquin said. “We actually have people in our backyard who are capable of being trained for really any field.”