Discovering Biology in a Digital World

Educating students for a career in the workforce or a place in society: why do not both?

Observations on attitudes.

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 20, 2009 1:01 PM

The first annual New Jersey Biotechnology Educators Consortium Conference

This First Annual Conference for New Jersey Biotechnology Educators will be held on Saturday, Oct. 4th at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. I'm excited about attending this...

Posted by Sandra Porter on September 29, 2008 2:02 PM

Career pathways in biotechnology

Students in the United States take many convoluted and unnecessarily complicated paths when it comes to finding careers in biotechnology. If Universities and community colleges worked together, an alternative path...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 12, 2008 2:52 PM

Flash animations of Sanger DNA Sequencing

I'm in Berkeley right now at the annual Bio-Link Summer Fellows forum. We're getting to hear talks from people in the biotech industry, listen to enthusiastic instructors describe their biotech...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 4, 2008 10:30 AM

Finding a job in life sciences: Dr. Elaine Johnson talks about the easiest way to a biotech career

A little over ten years ago, Dr. Elaine Johnson obtained funding from the National Science Foundation to start Bio-Link, an Advanced Technology Education center, focused on biotechnology. Since that time,...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 3, 2008 6:08 PM

Starting a new biotech program? Teaching a biotech course?

Bio-Link is accepting applications for this year's National Summer Fellows forum, June 2-6th, in Berkeley, CA. You can get an application at www.bio-link.org I'll be there, doing some kind of...

Posted by Sandra Porter on March 17, 2008 6:13 PM

Science educators mourn Ron Mardigian

We often see memorials written about famous scientists, but we rarely see them about the people who work in the background to help people learn the science in the first...

Posted by Sandra Porter on January 10, 2008 12:53 PM

Careers in biotechnology, part II bioinformatics

Where does bioinformatics fit in the biotech food chain?

Posted by Sandra Porter on July 17, 2007 8:00 AM

2007 Bio-Link Summer Fellows Workshop

It must be spring. Summer course announcements are popping up everywhere and this site is no exception. Last Friday, I posted an announcement about our summer bioinformatics course in Alaska,...

Posted by Sandra Porter on March 10, 2007 9:00 AM

Congratulations to Oklahoma City Community College!

GenomeWeb reports that OKCC and the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center received NIH funds for genomics and bioinformatics education projects, respectively. Congratulations are certainly due to the University...

Posted by Sandra Porter on January 5, 2007 1:15 PM

Favorite stories from 2006

From earwax to smelly things in our refrigerator, your favorites from Digital Biology.

Posted by Sandra Porter on January 1, 2007 12:24 PM

Ethical issues in biotechnology: contrasting companies and classrooms

What ethical issues concern people working in biotech?

Posted by Sandra Porter on October 18, 2006 11:47 AM

If you build it, will they come?

Many regions in the United States, and the world for that matter, are seeking to entice biotech companies to relocate. As Lorraine Ruff and David Gabrilska describe in their Genetic...

Posted by Sandra Porter on July 12, 2006 11:40 AM

San Francisco's New Bridge Leads to Biotechnology

Yet another Bio-Link blog post. The San Francisco bay area has experienced phenomenal growth in both the number of biotech companies and the need to find employees. But, no matter...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 27, 2006 7:00 AM

Great science teachers one and all

Science Blogs has asked: What makes a good science teacher? Many of the science teachers that I've met can't really be described by the adjective "good." The better fitting words...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 22, 2006 8:00 PM

Informed Consent and "An Inconvenient Truth"

I recently completed a long trip out-of-town, giving a presentation at a Bio-Link conference in Berkeley, and teaching a couple of bioinformatics classes at the University of Texas, through the...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 20, 2006 2:03 PM

"Show me the money"

Blogging from Bio-Link, part III High school teachers have different techniques for selling their students on the benefits of science and math. When some high school instructors step in front...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 16, 2006 8:32 PM

"It's all about Aunt Millie"

"It's all about saving Aunt Millie" Bob Swanson Co-Founder, Genentech More blogging from Bio-Link These next two posts salute instructors who teach in community college and high school biotechnology programs. Confronted with the daily routines of doing lab work, or keeping up with latest genotyping techniques or chromatography tools, some of us might forget that there's more to biotechnology than just the science. There are others who will never forget.

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 10, 2006 2:31 PM

Blogging from Bio-Link

Blogging from Bio-Link, part I I am currently in Berkeley attending the 2006 Bio-Link summer fellows' workshop. It's hard to believe that it's been eight years since the first workshop...

Posted by Sandra Porter on June 5, 2006 8:29 PM