On May 20, 2022, the Friday before finals week, the Biomanufacturing clubs from Laney College and Skyline College met at Glen Canyon Park in San Francisco for an end of the quarter celebration; to reward its members with community, burritos, games and prizes for a year well spent.
In a fun picnic, students from the Skyline College and Laney college Biomanufacturing Clubs met and were able to network and meet with one another for team building and celebration of the end of the semester. The Biomanufacturing club acts as an independent Contract manufacturing organization, completing orders to manufacture quality lab consumables that are used in local classrooms and labs. This gives the club members real work experience in manufacturing, keeping documents, clean room gowning, packaging and labeling as well as various other activities that a contract manufacturing organization would do. More experienced students act as the club’s shift leads and project managers, managing the other students’ activities, developing leadership skills and contributing where their expertise is needed. After a long year of producing over 10,000 petri plates, 2,000 DNA isolation sets, 1,000 mock covid kits and various other items it was time to celebrate and to see what we all look like after a year of masks and zoom training sessions.
The picnic was sponsored by our major customer: the Bay Area Bioscience Education Community (BABEC). BABEC provided catering for the party as well as prizes for the games that the students participated in. Throughout the year, BABEC provides Educational materials for local schools and greatly appreciates the low cost yet high quality materials that are made by the Biomanufacturing groups at Laney and Skyline Colleges.
Student members of the West Coast Chapter of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) were also in attendance at the party. The PDA is a global professional organization that promotes community and training of individuals who manufacture drugs and vaccines. Student membership is free for the PDA starting this year. The PDA also sponsors live training meetings in the Bay area that students can attend for free if they register or volunteer. The PDA members offered networking opportunities for our students.
It was an uncharacteristically hot and sunny day at Glen Canyon Park. Students competed in a speed gowning competition, challenging students to don a clean room gown, goggles, bonnet, mask, gloves and shoe covers all in a sterile manner in under 1 minute of time. It was a good thing that it was hot because we then filled up expired latex gloves with water and had an old-fashioned balloon/glove toss. A few of our members did get wet. We would also like to thank the BioLink Depot for supplying the old gloves and gowning materials. The attendees then used a mask to slingshot a water filled test tube for distance. Professor Jing Folsom (the most petite of the group) was able to sling the test tube the furthest. She then uncharacteristically announced that she was the winner and that everyone has homework to do in order to get better.
“It was a good end to an interesting year of production, attending conferences and volunteering at various schools and organizations such as the BioLink Depot. The faculty and students are looking forward to what we can do in the coming year.” said Professor Nick Kapp
Article by Johnathan Der | Photos by Nick Kapp
