Middlesex Community College is moving forward with plans to build a specialized life-sciences center at its Springs Road campus.
“We trying to meet the workforce demands for biopharmaceutical and biotechnology in our area,” said college President Philip Sisson. “One of the biggest needs for a lot of these companies is at the technical level, especially in manufacturing. That’s what we do best.”
The classrooms and laboratories are targeted for Henderson Hall, the main academic building in Bedford. “Were excited about the plans. This could be a signature program for our Bedford campus,” the president affirmed.
Sisson said if fundraising and budgetary goals are realized, he hopes the life sciences center is operational within a year to 18 months.
“Biotech has been a significant program at the college since the early 1990s,” Sisson said, noting that Middlesex was one of the first community colleges in the country to offer an associate degree program in the subject. Dr. Mariluci Bladon started the biotechnology program and continues to teach and direct it.
The Bedford center will expand the programing that fills an entire floor of a building on the Lowell campus, including classrooms and fully-equipped laboratories, Sisson related. More than 100 students are learning there, and “we could double that over three to five years if we had the facility.”
“A lot of these courses run for an extended period of time, working with cell cultures, doing a lot of testing,” Sisson explained. The Bedford life-sciences center will replicate that, he said.
The MCC president said the Middlesex biotech program is the largest among all Massachusetts community colleges, and “produces the most graduates. But there is still a demand and a need.”
Sisson said the college’s involvement with the innovative pharmaceutical firm Ultragenyx was pivotal to the decision to expand the life sciences center.
Ultragenyx is constructing its first gene-therapy manufacturing facility in the Bedford Woods campus off Middlesex Turnpike, but the college has supported the firm’s Boston area operations for several years. Ultragenyx hosts MCC “Learn and Earn” students as manufacturing technicians at its pharmaceutical development and quality control facilities in Woburn.
Sisson said the college is pursuing “a number of funding sources,” including a Congressional earmark. “We reached out to (U.S. Rep. Seth) Moulton’s office and said this is the most important way we can help serve the expanding workforce, and we need equipment in order to do that,” Sisson related. “We sent a list of all the equipment we need to make it state-of-the-art.”
Moulton, in a recent announcement, said the proposed life-science center is one of 14 projects in his district that he included in fiscal year 2023 House Appropriations Subcommittee bills. The proposal to fund the Bedford biotech facilities totals $363,400.
“The project aims to develop a high-level genetics lab course and short-term industry training in quality assurance, microscopy, as well as providing research opportunities,” Moulton announced.
Ron Eckstein, Moulton’s communications director, said the funding is expected to be passed by the House of Representatives at the end of July. “It’s unclear when the Senate will vote on the bill, but it is expected to pass when that vote happens,” he said in an email. He expects that will happen in the fall.
“Our community projects will be in the bill when it does become law,” he wrote. Moulton’s office, Sisson commented, has been “incredibly supportive. We are grateful that the congressman understands the need and that we are integral partners.”
The president said other potential for funds include the Massachusetts Life Sciences Foundation and the Massachusetts Skills Capital Grant Program. Middlesex has received funds from this state program “to revitalize our engineering and CAD labs, and renovate our dental hygiene clinic.
He said he hopes to receive commitments over the next few months. “As soon as we get these other puzzle pieces in place” physical planning can begin, Sisson said. “We are working with the faculty already.”
Sisson explained that there is space in Henderson Hall as an indirect result of the pandemic. “Fifty percent of our courses are still online,” he noted. “We have a large physical footprint, and one of the challenges is how do we make the best used of the classrooms we have.”
All of the Bedford campus science labs are in Henderson, Sisson pointed out. “It’s the perfect location to turn general classrooms and offices into biotech.”
Mike Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected], or 781-983-1763
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