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THE FUTURE OF
The Future of Biomanufacturing in Oklahoma The Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Camp received $7.2 million through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge and will provide hands-on training in biomanufacturing workforce development. This, along with the rest of the $35 million grant package allocated to the Oklahoma Biotech Innovation Cluster, will help push Oklahoma’s biomanufacturing sector much further. BY GREG HORTON
WHAT STARTED AS
a series of questions related to biomanufacturing in Oklahoma and a grant for a biomanufacturing workforce training facility quickly turned into a conversation about beer. Yes, beer. Dr. Elaine Hamm, CEO of Ascend BioVentures, is used to converting scientific concepts into more readily accessible metaphors for those who were just happy to escape a high school lab science class with a passing grade. “Biomanufacturing takes place in large fermenters,” she said. Fermenters? “Yes, just like a brewery,” she said. “Large stainless steel tanks full of very specialized cells – they’re actually Chinese hamster ovarian cells to be specific – and we feed them sugar so they make stuff, so yes, it’s very much like brewing beer, but we’re ‘brewing’ cells that produce antibodies and other biologics.” These fermenters – also known as bioreactors – look very much like tanks in a brewery, and so when thinking about what a biomanufacturing facility looks like, just imagine looking at the large tanks behind the glass at local breweries