West Coast Biomanufacturing Consortium for Automation and Data analytics (BioCAD)

The West Coast Biomanufacturing Consortium for Automation and Data analytics (BioCAD) will develop and pilot programs to train incumbent employees in contemporary data engineering and analytics approaches for biomanufacturing.
Categories
Incumbent worker training
Project status
100% Completed

Industry Need

  • Training engineers and scientists in contemporary data engineering and analytics approaches for biomanufacturing will enhance their ability to employ data-informed decision making.  

Solution

The West Coast Biomanufacturing Consortium for Automation and Data analytics (BioCAD) will develop and pilot programs to train incumbent employees in contemporary data engineering and analytics approaches for biomanufacturing and support them with the application and integration of these skills into their regular workflows.  

  • Pilot content will be delivered utilizing Python development packages for multivariate analysis, providing upskilling and cross-training for incumbent engineers and scientists to enhance their ability to employ data-informed decision-making at the unit-process and manufacturing platform levels.  
  • BioCAD will also develop advanced biomanufacturing data analytics cases and companion data sets that will be disseminated to NIIMBL members and support the development of advanced training modules. 
  • BioCAD will sustain and scale its impact through the development of a consortium of corporations, industry associations, and universities that collaborate to develop and disseminate training content. It envisions serving biopharmaceutical hubs on the West Coast through in-person and blended content dissemination modalities. BioCAD will also prepare content and validate a framework for modularized formats supported by distance mentoring for future dissemination to a wider national and international audience. 


Outputs/Deliverables

 OUTPUTS

  • The team designed, developed, and piloted 13 hours of foundational biomanufacturing data analytics applied learning content, providing introductions to data programming and the application of multivariate statistical methods using low-cost, open-source Python data programming tools.
  • Responding to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the SCU-Genentech team pivoted from in-person modalities to instead produce synchronous, remote boot camps delivered to cohorts of students (43 attendees) and Genentech-Roche professionals working at multiple domestic and global sites (48 attendees); 5 hours have been revised and scripted for asynchronous dissemination.
  • The pilot was designed to support incumbent employees and student pipelines from non-data-science backgrounds (e.g. scientists, bioprocess engineers, manufacturing engineers).
  • Training provided hands-on introductions to tools and methods with the intent of enhancing participant knowledge of the importance and capabilities of analytics for biomanufacturing optimization and to build their capacity to identify and solve important problems with the support of company data scientists.
  • The team collaborated with three West Coast life science associations to survey and interview subject-matter experts from companies of different sizes and from different biopharmaceutical segments and geographic hubs; it successfully recruited a second academic partner, two industry association partners, and another global biopharmaceutical company to expand the pilot into a more complete introductory online boot camp series.


Impacts

Accelerates and de-risks the creation, validation, and delivery of project-based workforce training models in data analytics that support real-world knowledge acquisition and integration for bioprocessing.

Upskills incumbent engineers and scientists to better grasp the utility of data and utilize domain knowledge and close proximity to complex data sets to drive gains in quality, productivity, cost-efficiency, and speed-to-market.

The SCU-Genentech team designed, developed, and piloted 13 hours of foundational biomanufacturing data analytics applied learning content, providing introductions to data programming and the application of multivariate statistical methods using low-cost, opensource data programming tools.

Training provided hands-on introductions to tools and methods to enhance participant knowledge of the importance and capabilities of analytics for biomanufacturing optimization and to build their capacity to identify and solve important problems with data scientists.

The consortium successfully recruited a second academic partner, two industry association partners, and another global biopharmaceutical company to expand the pilot into a more complete introductory online boot camp series.

Publications

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Project Lead

Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University

Participating Organizations

Genentech, Inc.

Genentech, Inc.