Building Industry-Inspired Medical Biotechnology Investigative Laboratories to Enhance Experiential Capstone Courses

According to national labor market information study, access to talent is the greatest business challenge Canadian biotech companies are facing. We, therefore, developed, implemented, and assessed a pharma industry-inspired, medicinal research laboratory module in an experiential capstone biotechnology laboratory course. This involves developing a 12-week semester-long graduate laboratory module, introducing the students to the biotechniques in microbiomics, genomics, proteomics, enzyme kinetics, drug screening, and bioinformatics, with accompanying class and lab participation (discussion forum), lab reports, and team-based assignments. The course was taught both as interactive in-person and as synchronous virtual classroom sessions. The success of the offered pedagogy was established by the laboratory exit survey and the evaluation of students' performance in various course elements and activities. The survey responses and students' performance in the course imply that the course furthered an in-depth knowledge of both industry-focused techniques and the theory behind them, as well as a genuine excitement for medical research. The skillsets honed by these laboratories will better prepare biotechnology graduates in undertaking scientific investigation for their careers in a field where there is a chronic biotech skill shortage. Students performed well and had a high overall perception of the course.