NC biotech center In 1981, a group of North Carolina legislators sat down to wrestle with a question that sounds almost naïve in retrospect: how do you build an industry that doesn't exist yet? The field of biotechnology was still largely theoretical — more petri dish than product line — and most American policymakers were content to watch the coastal research universities and their adjacent venture capital ecosystems take the lead. North Carolina's legislators took a different view. After commissioning a year-long study, they landed on an answer that was, frankly, unusual for the era: create a private, non-profit organization whose sole purpose was to grow biotechnology in the state. Not a government bureau. Not a university department. Something in between, and deliberately so. Three years later, in October 1984, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech) opened in Research Triangle Park. It was, by most accounts, the world's first government-sponsored biotec...
Best Schools to Study Biotechnology Think about the last time you got a vaccine, ate a strawberry in winter, or heard about scientists curing diseases. All of these involve biotechnology. Simply put, biotechnology uses living things like bacteria, plants, and cells to make useful products or solve problems. Scientists working in biotechnology create medicines that save lives, grow crops that can survive droughts, clean up pollution, and even make insulin for people with diabetes. The field keeps growing because we face big challenges: diseases that need new treatments, a planet that needs feeding, and an environment that needs protecting. Right now, thousands of companies across America need people who understand biotechnology. From massive pharmaceutical companies in New Jersey to small startup labs in California, these businesses compete for smart, trained workers. Picking where to learn biotechnology shapes your future career more than almost any other choice you'll m...