For more than 20 years, The Wistar Institute has been training community college students with relevant, much-needed skills to attain in-demand jobs in the biomedical and biotechnology fields. Since 2000, Wistar understood that biomedical lab technicians would always be highly sought after for their own labs and beyond, and thus set out to create a program to cultivate this much-needed talent.
That program became the flagship Biomedical Technician Training Program, now a registered pre-apprenticeship program. The opportunity to extend hands-on training allowed Wistar to develop the Biomedical Research Technician Apprenticeship—the first registered, non-traditional apprenticeship in biomedical research in the nation.
Upon being awarded a PAsmart grant of $649,551 from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, Wistar is now on track to expand both programs further across the region and create additional pre-apprenticeships to offer more students the opportunity to prepare for careers with additional employers in the growing life sciences industry.
Read the Governor’s announcement of all PAsmart grant program winners.