IRES Track I: A U.S.-Ireland Partnership for an International Graduate Research Experience in Biopharmaceutical Processing

美国经济在许多行业都面临着前所未有的挑战。这些挑战强调了培养下一代生物制药科学家的一个引人注目的机会，这些科学家在我们的世界迫切需要的领域受过专门训练。尽管美国和非美国国家之间的国际伙伴关系。基于基地的安排往往具有挑战性，特别是在生物制造领域，我们有一个独特的机会来执行轨道1国际研究经验（IRES），利用我们与托马斯杰斐逊大学和爱尔兰国家生物加工研究和培训研究所（NIBRT）的现有合作，一个非学术研究企业。该项目将在世界一流的设施中提供独特的培训和教育研究经验，吸引未被充分代表的少数民族，并为参与者过渡到工业界或高级学位课程提供帮助。托马斯·杰斐逊大学提议与其国际培训合作伙伴，国家生物加工研究与培训研究所（NIBRT）合作，以实现生物分析和生物监测方法的全球研究，目标如下：(1)为一群特别挑选的学生（每年N=6人）提供机会，与全球知名的领导者一起发展生物制药过程工程方面的敏捷分析技能，使他们脱颖而出。(2)通过参与生物制药工艺工程和招聘工作，增加未被充分代表的少数民族（urm）在生命科学和工程领域的参与。(3)培训和过渡准备良好的、极具竞争力的学生进入行业职位或高级学位课程。我们的长期目标是增加生物制药和疫苗行业的劳动力储备，并在一个对人类健康和国家安全至关重要的领域培养美国制造业的竞争力。生物制药行业受到高度监管，在相关地点进行研究和培训的机会既困难又昂贵。费城/杰斐逊和NIBRT之间已经建立的有意义的关系为两位思想领袖提供了强有力的融合，以建立一种新颖的、潜在的变革性研究培训体验，这种体验利用了我们的国际交流、现有课程、世界一流的研究人员和全球其他任何地方都无法比拟的能力。此外，随着美国人口多样性的增加，我们试图在STEM领域保持竞争力，继续有针对性地努力吸引urm对美国STEM劳动力的发展至关重要。最后，我们打算将这一新生的国际机会建立为可持续的长期交流，使美国和NIBRT的学员在任何一个大洲都有全球性的机会。作为回报，通过确保这种类型的培训和体验式学习，我们将为生物制造行业迫切需要的劳动力做出重大贡献，我们的研究结果将支持现有文献关于国际STEM学生培训机会的优势。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The U.S. economy is faced with unprecedented challenges in numerous industry sectors. These challenges underscore a compelling opportunity to prepare the next generation of biopharmaceutical scientists who are specially trained in a field that our world desperately needs. Despite the fact that international partnerships between U.S. and non-U.S.-based sites are often challenging to arrange, especially in the area of biomanufacturing, we have a unique opportunity to execute a Track 1 International Research Experience (IRES) that capitalizes on our existing collaboration between Thomas Jefferson University and Ireland’s National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), a non-academic research enterprise. The program will provide a unique training and educational research experience in a world class facility, engage underrepresented minorities, and provide assistance to transition the participants to industry or advanced degree programs.Thomas Jefferson University proposes to engage its international training partner, the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) to enable global research in methodologies of bioanalytics and biomonitoring with the following goals: (1) Offer a specially selected cohort of students (N=6 each year) the opportunity to develop agile, analytical skills in biopharmaceutical process engineering with a prominent global leader so that they emerge as distinctively prepared. (2) Increase the inclusion of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in the life sciences and engineering through participation in biopharmaceutical process engineering and recruitment efforts. (3) Train and transition exceptionally prepared, highly competitive students into industry positions or advanced degree programs. Our long-term goals are to increase the workforce pipeline for the biopharmaceutical and vaccine industries, and foster U.S. manufacturing competitiveness in an area critically important to human health and national security. The biopharmaceutical industry is highly regulated and research and training opportunities at relevant sites are both difficult and costly. The meaningful relationship already in place between Philadelphia/Jefferson and NIBRT offers a powerful convergence of two thought leaders in establishing a novel and potentially transformative research training experience that capitalizes on our international exchange, existing curriculum, and world-class researchers and capabilities unmatched anywhere else on the globe. Furthermore, continued targeted efforts to engage URMs are critical to the evolution of the U.S.’s STEM workforce as the diversity of U.S. populations increase and we attempt to remain competitive in STEM fields. Finally, we intend to build this nascent international opportunity into a sustainable and long-term exchange in which U.S. and NIBRT trainees have global opportunities on either continent. In return, by securing this type of training and experiential learning, we will contribute significantly to a workforce that is desperately needed in the biomanufacturing industry and our findings will bolster the existing literature on the advantages of international STEM student training opportunities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.