RCCC a Welcome Addition

Last Thursday, there was a dedication ceremony for the new RCCC biotechnology training facility at the NC Research Campus. This building has been long anticipated and is a key link between the scientific activities at the Research Campus and the workforce in our community.

RCCC’s associate degree programs in biotechnology, applied science, and, in the future,  agricultural biotechnology will allow local residents to gain the education and training that will help them develop a career in biotechnology and related fields. These job skills will be transferable to future positions available at NCRC or elsewhere.

The new 62,000 square foot facility contains laboratories, classrooms, computer labs, faculty and staff offices, conference rooms, a community event room, library, and a student center. Up to 300 students and faculty will use the facility, helping to increase the daytime population in the center city area of Kannapolis. The new building also houses RCCC’s Small Business Center, which works with small business owners and entrepreneurs to develop and grow their ventures.

The biotechnology facility is a welcome addition to NCRC and downtown Kannapolis. It gives our community a great opportunity to learn more about a growing field and reposition our workforce for jobs of the future.

p.s. I’m back from maternity leave! Please feel free to contact me regarding any business and economic development issues.

Community Fitness Testing Offered by App State

As the NCRC continues to progress, one of the university institutes is offering its services to the public. The ASU Human Performance Lab, part of Appalachian State’s work on the NCRC, will offer tests to assess aerobic fitness, resting metabolic rate, and body composition for athletes and nonathletes. These are the same tests that several NASCAR teams have used (read more in this Salisbury Post article).

Not only will ASU offer its tests, which have been given to world class athletes like Lance Armstrong, but the testing also includes a counseling session to help target ways to improve your personal fitness. Pretty neat, huh?

For more information and pricing, check out this flyer. You can also email ASU-NCRC@appstate.edu.

Babies Needed!

As you drive by the North Carolina Research Campus, it’s hard to imagine what is taking place in those big buildings.

In the labratories of North Carolina State University in Kannapolis, vegetable and fruit breeding and molecular genetics are being researched. Jeremy Pattison, PhD, is part of a multidisciplinary reaserch team that is addressing the genetic improvement of strawberries which could lead to a longer growing season.

TinChung Leung, PhD, with North Carolina Central University, is researching zebrafish to assess the effects of nutritional requirements on brain development, cardiovascular disease, obesity, neurological disorders and cancer.  

Can you be involved in campus research if you aren’t a fruit, vegetable or zebrafish? Yes, IF you have  small children. The Cheatham Lab at the UNC-Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) in Kannapolis is looking for children to participate in research studies.  Dr. Carol Cheatham is interested in the impact of nutrition on brain development and performance in children.

If you have a child who will soon be a 3 to 4-month old, 6-month-old, or 16-month-old and would like to learn more about the exciting work being conducted in the UNC building, Julie Stegall, recruiter for the study, would LOVE to talk with you. Give Julie a call at 704-250-5018 or email her at feedingbrains@yahoo.com or Julie_stegall@unc.edu for more details.

Six-month-old Lincoln Perkins wears a specialized net that reads electrical impulses in the brain. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Two New Studies Underway with the MURDOCK Study

The good folks at the Duke MURDOCK study have launched two new initiatives as a part of the overall study. The researchers are seeking those over 100 (you don’t have to live in Cabarrus or Rowan County) or those with MS over the age of 18.

For the centenarian study, the research team hopes  to uncover insights into why a small portion of the population have extraordinary life spans.  Specifically, does someone who lives to 100 or beyond have a unique genome – genes and chromosomes? If you know someone, visit www.murdock-study.com.

Also, the recruitment effort continues for the MURDOCK Study. Those living in Cabarrus and Rowan County are eligible, and to join you can visit the website for more information. The goal is 50,000 participants.

Big Week for the NC Research Campus

It’s been a great week for the NCRC. First, the announcement was made Tuesday that General Mills will be opening a lab on the campus. Then, on Wednesday, we learned that the Immune Tolerance Institute will be working here as well. They will establish the Center for Critical Path Research in Immunology.

It seems that, perhaps, we might be coming out of the recession and momentum is picking up. Many of of the universities have made hires recently, and the DHMRI has clients using their facilities from up and down the eastern seaboard. Science is really starting to flourish in Kannapolis.

There has been some great reporting on both of these announcements. For more, you can check out WBTV’s story about General Mills or this Salisbury Post piece or this one about the Immune Tolerance Institute.

Biotechnology is Alive and Well

As the lingering effects of the great recession continue to lead to slow job growth (not only in Kannapolis but across the globe) there are some bright spots on the horizon.

UNCC economist John Connaughton recently predicted a net growth of 36,000 jobs in North Carolina this year. While that is much less than what was lost during the last two years, it does provide a positive sign.

What is really interesting, however, is the resilience of the biotechnology and life science sector in North Carolina during the last year. NC Biotech Center CEO Norris Tolson points out in a recent column in the Raleigh News & Observer that, while the state unemployment rate hit 11% last year, biotech jobs actually grew by 1%.

He goes on to predict that, with serious focus, the biotech industry in North Carolina could grow by more than 65,000 jobs over the next decade. I like to think that the hard work occurring in Kannapolis is a critical component of that focus. In fact, I know it is.

There appears to be lots of venture capital still finding its way to biotechnology projects as evidenced by a recent report by online venture capital database VentureDeal. The report showed a steady amount of biotech venture capital and almost no change from the third to fourth quarter of 2009.

One of the keys to remember when thinking about biotechnology as an industry is that it goes well beyond drug development. It crosses into agriculture, medical devices and biofuels. There is a great guide to learn more about the different areas on the NC Biotechnology Center website.

Not only does biotech cross multiple industry sectors, but it also creates other jobs. When you look at this list of top jobs in 2010 from the Wall Street Journal, the following stand out: statistician, biologist, mathematician, accountant and computer systems engineer. All of these jobs have a direct link to the environment being built at the NCRC.

Not only are the types of the jobs we’re working to create on the campus the best jobs of today, but they also hold the greatest potential for the future. One analysis by the US Department of Labor recently ranked biomedical engineer as the number one job based on growth potential over the next decade. Medical scientists, biochemists and biophysics made the top 10.

So, while the recession has been very difficult for so many in our community, I choose to take the long view. We have a budding economic engine in Cabarrus County the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Philip Morris announcement three decades ago. When this economy turns around, we’re going to be perfectly positioned to take advantage.

Good News on the Bio Labor Front

I had the opportunity to attend a very exciting meeting this morning at the Charlotte Regional Partnership. As a part of a larger effort directed by the NC Biotech Center, the CRP helped to commission an analysis of the labor market for biomanufacturing in our region.

The approach was very interesting. The contracted with Biggins, Lacy, Shapiro & Co, a New Jersey-based site selection consultant, to find out how our workforce looked if a large manufacturing interest was looking at our region as a possible location for a 400 job facility. Kannapolis was a specific point used for the report.

Long story short? There are more than 24,000 workers right now in our area that could be easily hired into a biomanufacturing plant. This is great news. To break it down further, the ratio that firms generally look for is 15:1. That is, 15 qualified workers for every job opening that would happen at their facility. Our ration is 30:1, meaning we would have 30 qualified workers for every 1 job at the 400 job facility.

Our strong manufacturing base and the skill sets already here translate well to this industry. We’ve already seen that with Harmony Labs. This report will provide a powerful marketing tool to companies looking at our state and will help tell our story. To read the report, click here.

NCRC Staffer Featured on Charlotte Talks

The topic on this morning’s Charlotte Talks radio program on WFAE was about food safety – in restaurants as well as on the farm. Diane Ducharme, the Extension Associate with NCSU at the NC Research Campus and the NC MarketReady (a program of NC Cooperative Extension), was featured on the radio program. She discusses food safety of tomatoes and other products, some of the risks, and what kind of improvements are being made to produce handling to increase safety. Click here to listen to the program.

The Vision of the NCRC and a Call for Patience

I have been a native of the Charlotte region for most of my 40-something years.  During this time I have watched with interest the development (and oftentimes redevelopment) of uptown Charlotte. Or downtown. Or Center City.

This weekend, while reading an article about the residential development in downtown Charlotte, I was struck that while only 8 of the 20 announced developments since the mid-2000s have been built, that downtown economic developers and promoters would have likely been thrilled by the knowledge in 1999 that, by 2010, there would be 8 new significant downtown residential developments.  It’s easy to look back now and focus on the 12 projects that didn’t happen (yet) and lose sight of the 8 that did happen and how they helped transform Charlotte’s urban core.

The parallels to the development landscape in downtown Charlotte and some of the recent talk about the slowdown of development on the North Carolina Research Campus are amazingly close. Can you imagine how excited in July 2003 we in Kannapolis and Cabarrus County would have been to know that by 2009 we would be witness to the removal of more than 6 million square feet of rapidly decaying and obsolete textile manufacturing space (with no public funds expended to do it); the construction of three huge buildings including a one of a kind, state-of-the-art laboratory facility and space to support eight public and private universities doing groundbreaking life science research; nearly $300 million in private investment; and more than 200 people in the biotech industry working in downtown Kannapolis?

The Great Recession has changed our real estate market and it has impacted development projects across the country, from downtown Charlotte to New York City’s World Trade Center site to yes, Kannapolis and the North Carolina Research Campus.

What hasn’t changed in Kannapolis is the vision. Over the past several years we have spent a lot of time talking about buildings, and rightfully so. But we’re moving into a phase of the maturity of the Campus where the science is starting to take flight. Scientific papers are being published. Scientists are being recruited on a daily basis.  Real scientific discoveries are starting to develop and emerge.  This growth in the business of the Campus (more so than the development of the Campus) is what will sustain the project over time.  It is the science and the discoveries that will lead to more buildings, more private investment and more jobs.  The transformation of our local economy is indeed occurring – just not in the five years we had originally hoped.

Even if we never witnessed another brick being laid on the North Carolina Research Campus, we as a community and a region are incredibly fortunate to have seen what has occurred to date.  We are already incredibly far ahead of the game.

The satisfying part of all this is that the North Carolina Research Campus is still in its infancy and there are no plans to stop (or even slow) its continued development once our national and global economy recovers.  There will certainly be plenty more bricks to be laid on the Campus and lots more jobs to be created; but more importantly, there will be real scientific breakthroughs in the areas of nutrition, food productivity and disease research.  We must remain patient and do our part to continue to support this great vision.

NC A&T Lecture Series Launches Tonight

Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna

NC A&T kicks off a month of free lectures on the NC Research Campus this evening with a talk from Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, Director of the Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies. His talk will provide an overview of the Center’s role on the NCRC and also include information on technologies for enhancing the safety of and value of peanuts in North Carolina.*

The month continues with four other free lectures with topics ranging from what to eat to help avoid cancer risks to food safety to sustainable agriculture.

The talks begin at 7 p.m. each Tuesday in March and are held at the Core Lab. For more information, check out the program flyer here.

*On a personal note this sounds really cool to me, in addition to tobacco, my grandfather grew peanuts on his farm in Martin County. I miss getting the burlap bags of peanuts each year at Thanksgiving.