Tag: STEM

N.C. A&T, Merck Introduce High School Students to Biotechnology

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GREENSBORO, N.C. (Oct. 9, 2024) – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada, hosted a five-day biotechnology camp for 12 high school students at the Merck Biotechnology Learning Center located at the Gateway Research Park South Campus.

The camp is a result of N.C. A&T and Merck’s ongoing partnership efforts to provide teaching, research and engagement opportunities not just to faculty and students on campus, but to young scientists in the local community.

“I believe that the camp helped the students learn more about the biotechnology industry, in general, and biochemistry/molecular biology, in particular,” said Nathan F. Simms Distinguished Professor Robert H. Newman, Ph.D., in A&T’s College of Science and Technology (CoST). “They were introduced to concepts and techniques that they can build on in the future as they pursue careers in bioscience research.”

Specifically, the students learned how to express, purify and analyze recombinant proteins through hands-on activities for a guided research project and as parallel, they participated in professional development activities that introduced them to biotechnology careers.

The students also developed their scientific communications skills, which included learning how to present a research poster effectively and how to explain their research in a short, elevator speech.

“By engaging in authentic research throughout the program and honing their scientific communication skills, the students were able to grow in their scientific self-efficacy,” said Newman. “Hopefully, the program will be a catalyst for the students as they continue to grow as researchers and as people.”

Most of the camp participants – Chandler Pearson, Megan Jackson, Cheick Amadou, Favour Faleye, Ayesha Mehreen, Oliver Miller, Mekhi Norwood and Kaleb Roland – were from the greater Greensboro area. The others were Wilhelmena Johnson of Raleigh, North Carolina, Poshika Prabu of Apex, North Carolina, Sydney Williams of Dallas and Miles Wooden of Atlanta.

“The biotech camp was very enjoyable and educational! It cemented biochemistry as my intended career choice,” said Faleye.

“Thank you for the informative and fun week of biochemistry. Although I clearly still have much to learn, I feel as though a possible field in the area isn’t as unreachable as I initially thought,” said Roland. “It will definitely be on my list of future careers.”

Organizers were somewhat surprised to receive applications from students across the country, but that further proved that there is growing interest in the field.

Facilitators were B. Miles Baker, M.S., Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow and graduate student in CoST’s Applied Science and Technology Ph.D. program; Rosalind Dale, Ed.D., vice provost for outreach and engagement; and Stephanie Goodrich, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Newman Lab.

Source:  NC A&T, www.ncat.edu
By Jamie Crockett / 10/09/2024 Research, College of Science and Technology

Core Technology, homegrown Greensboro injection-molding company, to fledge nest for a home of its own

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GREENSBORO, NC – JULY 19, 2024 – The homegrown Greensboro company Core Technology Molding Corporation, a plastic injection molding company born as an MBA semester project, is about to fledge from its nest at the Gateway Research Park for a home of its own.

Greensboro City Council on Tuesday approved an economic-development incentive package for the company worth up to $520,407. It’s conditioned on Core Technology keeping its present workforce of about 52 plus creating 26 new jobs through 2029 and making a total capital investment of $27.85 million.

Core Technology is considering a site on Millstream Road. The county notice said the company is considering a site in the Millstream Industrial Park, which is along Interstate 40/85.

The company was founded in 2006 by Geoff Foster, an engineering alumnus of N.C. A&T State University and MBA alumnus of Wake Forest University. It’s based at the Gate City Boulevard South Campus of Gateway Research Park, a joint operation of N.C. A&T and UNC-Greensboro.City Economic Development Manager Marshall Yandle told council the company is considering other sites in the Southeast.

However, Foster, in brief remarks to the council Tuesday, was clearly leaning toward staying. He thanked the city and Greensboro Chamber of Commerce for supporting the company in its 18 years, noting it’s able to ship to 150 countries.

The move to the Greensboro site would allow Core Technology to consolidate operations under one roof and operate more efficiently, while offering career-track jobs in robotics and other advanced STEM fields, Foster said.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan and council members also heaped praise on Foster and the company, noting its Greensboro roots.

“I think he has a Fortune 500 company. If it isn’t already, it will be,” councilwoman Sharon Hightower said

While not yet a Fortune 500 company, Core Technology has been a frequent name on the Business Journal’s annual Fast 50 list of fastest-growing Triad companies, reflecting dollar and percentage growth. It is also one of the largest minority-owned businesses in Triad, and if it grows to 78 jobs, it would become the largest Black-owned business in Greensboro.

Core Technology and Foster have won recognition for work exposing young people to potential science, technology, engineering and math careers, such as through its nonprofit arm Molding Kids for Success, which has a summer STEM camp for youth.

Foster conceived of the business as a project for an entrepreneurship class during his final semester in graduate business school at Wake Forest University. Foster had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from N.C. A&T State University and had been working in various engineering roles.

The company has registered triple-digit growth in the past few years as it has found success in an array of sectors, but primarily in pharmaceuticals and automotive.

A turning point came when it got tier-one supplier status with BMW in 2015, Foster said in an interview with Triad Business Journal. It made a part for vehicles assembled at the German company’s U.S. assembly plant near Greer in upstate South Carolina.

Foster put it this way: BMW recommended Core Technology across markets to drugmaker Merck, who recommended the company to Pfizer, and then to Volvo Group, whose North American base for Volvo Trucks and Mack Trucks is in Guilford County.

“And I think when we hit tier one status, it didn’t matter if it was automotive, pharmaceutical, appliance, semiconductor — when you get to that status, it gets people’s attention that you’re able to deliver on time,” Foster said. “In 2015 when we were able to hit that, I started to realize that I think we’ve got something.”

Automation has been key, Foster said.

 “We’re able to compete with China, India, Mexico, where some of our competitors, they either can’t make the investment, the automation is expensive, … or won’t make it, but they can’t compete, and that’s why they can’t get to this tier one status.”

For a while, automotive made up about two-thirds of the company’s business, but now biopharmaceuticals account for about 65% of business, Foster said. It helps to be relatively close to Research Triangle Park and its many drug-development and manufacturing companies, Foster noted.

The company has been asked many times to relocate near some of its major customers, from Alabama to South Carolina, but Foster said Greensboro has a special appeal. He remains an adjunct engineering faculty member at N.C. A&T, which offers ready access to a pipeline of vital new talent.

“I get to cherry pick the best engineers out of that school,” Foster said. “Having that relationship with the largest HBCU in the country, having that relationship and able to teach on campus, recruit, I wouldn’t give that up. It’d be hard to replicate that in Charleston. I don’t know anybody there, and there’s just so much talent in Greensboro on that campus.”

Core Technology is leaving a space of about 30,000 square feet, but which can have a second story added to double it, Gateway center Executive Director Paul Meyer told TBJ.

“The great news is we have a manufacturing space that somebody might very well be interested in locating on our campus. And given everything that’s taking place in the Carolina Core, we’re thinking that there’ll be a fair amount of interest.”

As for Core Technology leaving, “That’s a great success and a testament to the power of partnership with these universities, and certainly with Gateway itself, and so we’re excited for Core Technologies taking the next step.”

SOURCE:  Triad Business Journal
Article Written By David Hill – Reporter, Triad Business Journal

Plant & Pollinator Center Receives Funding from the Dorothy Levis Munroe Research Fund

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GREENSBORO, NC – JUNE 13, 2024 – In the 2023-24 academic year, the College of Arts & Sciences Office of Research supported 20 UNCG students with nearly $20,000 in grants from the Dorothy Levis Munroe Research Fund. The fund was endowed by alumna Dorothy Levis Munroe ‘44 to support student research in the “natural and mathematical sciences.”

All 20 students conducted research in STEM departments: twelve in Biology, four in Chemistry and Biochemistry, two in Computer Science, and one each in Mathematics and Nanoscience. Students won support by submitting a research proposal and project budget up to $1000, depending on their project needs. Five Munroe grant recipients were undergraduate students, fourteen were graduate students, and one was a post-bacc student.

The list of items purchased with Munroe funds shows the diversity of research undertaken by these student scientists. They used award funds to purchase:

  • 250 Pine seedlings, 144 bluestem grass plugs, potting soil, and pots
  • Dissecting scissors, nets, an aquarium bubbler, and a heavy-duty wagon to haul these and other tools needed for collecting and tagging fish in streams across central NC
  • Carbon nanotubes to study DNA uptake of duckweed
  • Fluorescent Yellow Particles and Fetal Bovine Serum for research into the uptake of microplastics by human endothelial cells, which line the inside of our blood vessels.
  • Kits for genetic analysis in experiments with the drought-resistant grain tef
  • Chemical reagents and organic solvents
  • Lab supplies such as Erlenmeyer Flasks and well plates.

Munroe grants also supported travel by students to conduct research and attend conferences and scientific meetings. Their work took them to places near and far, including:

  • Fieldwork in Morganton and Elizabeth City, NC to study the ecology of chigger mites.
  • Fieldwork in South Africa’s Kruger National Park to study the effects of drought, fire, and extreme grazing on grasslands.
  • Fieldwork in the Gateway Research Park and at UNCG’s Plant and Pollinator Center.  The UNCG Plant & Pollinator is located at the 75-acre Gateway Research Park located on Summit Avenue in northeast Greensboro.  
  • Fieldwork at the Konza Prairie Biological Station in Kansas to study grassland recovery following nitrogen cessation in areas previously subject to chronic nitrogen addition.
  • NVIDIA’s GTC 2024, one of the top Artificial Intelligence conferences, to gain insights to improve a project developing new processes for clinical trial recruitment.
  • The Wildlife Society’s annual conference, to present a poster on phylogeography and flea community ecology of the long-tailed ground squirrel.
  • The International Computing and Combinatorics Conference, to share a paper titled “Improved Sourcewise Roundtrip Spanners with Constant Stretch.”
  • The Joint Mathematics Meetings, to share mathematical research into ecological models of species interactions.
  • The North Carolina Academy of Science annual meeting, where the student won the John Bowley Derieux Research Award.

Many of the students also participated in UNC Greensboro’s Graduate Research & Creativity Showcase of Scholarship or in the Thomas Undergraduate Research & Creativity Expo, where they presented posters or gave oral presentations.

Dorothy Levis Munroe graduated as a chemistry major from UNCG in 1944, along with her twin sister Katheryne Levis McCormick. Munroe went on to earn a master’s in chemistry, teach high school mathematics for many years, and become the first woman to serve on the board of education in Newark, Delaware. By endowing this fund at UNCG, Munroe hoped to encourage students to pursue the sciences by providing resources for their research.

Source:  UNCG Office of Research and Engagement
https://research.uncg.edu/