Chapter 14 Personnel Availability and Training

Chapter 14

Personnel Availabilityand Training

Contents

PageIntroduction. , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331Size and Future Growth of the Biotechnology Labor Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332Availability of Biotechnology Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Categories of Technical Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333Availability of Biotechnology Personnel in the United States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . 33sAvailability of Biotechnology Personnel in Other Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Personnel Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339Secondary School Education in the United States and Other Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339Undergraduate and Graduate Education in the United States and Other Countries . . . . . . . 340Translational Training in the United States and Other Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343Midcareer Retraining in the United States and Other Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Findings ..., . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345Issues and Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347Chapter 14 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Tables

Table No. Page62. Major Categories of Biotechnology R&D Personnel in Firms in the United States . . . . . . . 33463. Shortages in Major Categories of Ph. D. Biotechnology R&D Personnel in Firms

in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33664. Number of Scientists and Engineers Engaged in R&D by Country, 1977 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33765. Sources of New Ph. D. Biotechnology R&,D Personnel in Selected Categories

in Firms in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Chapter 14

Personnel Availability and Training

Introduction

331

332 Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis

Size and future growth of thebiotechnology labor force

It is very difficult to estimate the size of thebiotechnology labor force, Theoretically, the num-ber of personnel in supply and technological sup-port firms, which is approximately four to fivetimes that of firms commercializing biotechnology(11), should be included in the estimate. This chap-ter, however, focuses exclusively on the person-nel requirements for professional and technicalpersonnel of firms commercializing biotechnol-ogy. It does not consider the requirements of sup-ply and technological support firms, the vast ma-jority of which market products not only to com-panies commercializing biotechnology but toother companies as well.

A July 1982 report estimated total U.S. privatesector employment in “synthetic genetics” to be3,278, * including about 2)000 “professional andtechnical” employees (1 1). The same report esti-mated that U.S. private sector employment in“synthetic genetics” had grown at a rate of 54 per-cent annually since 1976 and projected that totalemployment would reach about 40,000 in 1992.

OTA estimates that about 5,000 employees areemployed by companies in the United States inbiotechnology R&D. In April 1983, OTA and theNational Academy of Sciences (NAS)* * conducteda survey to determine the personnel needs in bio-technology of companies in the United States. Thequestionnaire, reproduced in Appendix E: OTA/NAS Survey of Personnel Needs of Firms in theUnited States, was sent to 286 companies. of the133 that responded, 18 indicated that they werenot engaged in biotechnology activities, and 20others were determined not to be engaged in bio-

“This numher wirs irrrived at h~ taking estimates of total \\orld-wide shipment of I)iotechnologv produrts estimated for the targrt.vcar from (YI’A’s 1981 report lrnjxrcts of Applied (A)eli(w: ,} firro-(~rgani.srns, P/drItLS, and Animals (40). “1’his w+timat(~ was con~’(:rted

to en]ploynwnt of production wwrkw-s t)~’ using cirse stud: (Litir from

the sirrnc ()’I’A report, Next, this rwtimatc was (vn~erte(i into totalemployment, including nonproduct ion workers, t)} utilizing dat;ifor established industrim h’i[~iill}’, total ~torldwid(’ tvl~pk)~nwnt \\iissuhdii’idmi a n d ii wf~ightrd illlOCatiO1l ma(if~ to thf> [ Initmi Stilt(>S

* “NAS (k)n)nlitt(w on National Needs for Bionledi(’i]l and Ik’hii\’101’alResearrh i+rsonnet; Rohert B a r k e r , (k)rnel] L{nii(’rsit:’, (:halr ofP{lrl(l] orl ~asi(. Bionledi(.al P(>rsonnel

technology activities from their answers to thequestionnaire. To estimate the total number offirms engaged in biotechnology in the UnitedStates, OTA determined which of the 153 nonre-sponding companies were engaged in biotechnol-ogy by telephoning the companies, examining an-nual reports, reading newspaper reports, etc.OTA's estimate of the total number of companiesengaged in biotechnology activities in the UnitedStates is 219. *

As of April 1983, the 95 companies that re-sponded to the OTA/NAS survey employed 2,591individuals in industrial biotechnology R&I).These 95 firms represent 43 percent of the 219firms in the United States estimated to be engagedin biotechnology activity. Extrapolation of thisnumber suggests that the number of individualsemployed in biotechnology R&D in all 219 com-panies using biotechnology could be about 5,000.

The 95 firms that responded to the survey indi-cated plans to hire an additional 1,167 technical-ly trained employees over the next 18 months.**No company indicated plans to reduce the num-ber of technically trained employees in the next18 months, so this figure represents an annualemployment growth rate approaching 30 percent(not including any new companies formed in thenext 18 months). A 30-percent annual growth ratein the number of R&D personnel probably willnot be sustained over any length of time, so it isunlikely that the commercialization of biotechnol-ogy will lead directly to large increases in employ-ment in the R&D sector. The need for marketingand sales personnel and the potential for spinoffindustries are difficult to assess at this time.However, these sectors could be high-growth sec-tors for biotechnology.

— — — —*k’or” ii list 01 rompanies (~llgaged in t)iot(~(hnolog~” in the [ Tnitwl

States, see .4ppf’ndi,l D: [r]df~.1 o f k’irms {~[}rl]f]]fll’(>i;ilixjll~

Biote(’htmlogl in the [ lnitf~d St,7tf~s

“ ● F’or i) tabulation of the numbers iin(l t~”prs of enlplo~wtjs tht?st>

(’orllpi]rli(>s indicatfxi they pianrmi to hir(l, set> question 4 in ,4ppwx/i.\

1,; [1’1;4 51,4.% .Sunqb of Per-somjel ,i’(w].s [)t” [lIW)L% it] tjjt~ [ ‘I]it(yj ,St;)tf~,~

Ch. 14—Personnel Availability and Training ● 333

● F’[’l(llllcill (’11(’S ii 1 !)8(1 l-(’~)ol’t t))’ 11)(’ Niillollill IIlstitl]tt’ to]” ()(’(’ll~)ii -

t loIliil Silf(’t}’ ;111(1 ti(>iiltl~ (NI( )S1 I ) in it’hl(’!l NI()S11 1’(’~X)l’t(>(i 011 dS(’tl(”l’lllg-IJlol] $tl ([ ‘ S ) pl’(}(’f%s for” prm(iucing h~llllii!l hwkoc}’1(” 1rltf>r’-

t(’rx)r) onl) \rx p(’oplc werxl ,issrgnfd to p r o d u c t i o n , iirl(l prxhbl}all irk m (11’(’ rl{)t rlewll’(1 to rnorlitor-” tllc t)rol)rwcf’st I 1 1 I

Availability of biotechnology personnel

334 . Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis—

Table 62.—Major Categories of Biotechnology R&D Personnel in Firms in the United States (OTA/NAS Survey)—

Employees to be hiredPresent employees in the next 18 months

Area of technical expertise Number Percent of totala Number Percent of totala

Areas related to genetic manipulation:rDNA/molecular genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586Hybridoma/monoclinal antibodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247Plant molecular biology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Areas reiated to scale. upldownstream processing:Microbiology b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334Biochemistry c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326Bioprocess engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Areas related to all aspects of biotechnology:Enzymology/immobilized systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Cell culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

230/o10

3

1313

7

97

30214663

160125100

5966

250/o12

5

13108

55

aThe total “umber of ,nd”~trial ~er~onnel (currently engaged ,n FI&D in new biotechnology) identified in the OTAINAS survey was 2,591, The total number Of perSOnnel

bto be hired in the next 18 months, according to the survey responses, was 1,167 (see app. E)Mlcroblology, as used In this table, combtnes the OTAINAS survey responses to industrial microbiology and general microbiology (categories g and s of the surveyquestionnaire reproduced In app E)

cBlochemlst W as used ,n this table combines the OTA/NAS survey responses to analytical biochemistry and general biochemistry (categories j and k of su~ey ques-

Ilonnalre reproduced In app E)

SOURCE Off Ice of Technology Assessment

of products will become increasingly importantas companies developing commercial applicationsof biotechnology move into production. Althoughfew companies have reached the scale-up stagefor new biotechnology products to date, * asubstantial amount of R&D in companies develop-ing commercial applications of biotechnology isrelated to scale-up,

As shown in table 62, about one-third of the bio-technology R&D technical personnel at the 95companies responding to the OTA/NAS survey arespecialists in areas related primarily to scale-upand downstream processing: bioprocess engineer-ing, biochemistry, and microbiology. Bioprocessengineers are needed to design, construct, andmaintain scale-up equipment and bioprocesses.Biochemists (apart from enzymologists, discussedbelow) are involved in the recovery, purification,and quality control of protein products. Microbiol-ogists are needed for the isolation, screening, andselection of micro-organisms having particularcatalytic properties. Such specialists are alsoneeded to determine the optimal growth and pro-duction conditions for micro-organisms in orderto facilitate the design of environments that max-imize the micro-organisms’ productivity, In thecontext of the commercialization of biotechnol-ogy, bioprocess engineering, biochemistry, and

“In 1982, about 2 percent of all biotechnology workers in Califor-nia were production workers [1 1).

microbiology are generally considered to be moreapplied science disciplines than are molecularbiology and immunology.

As shown in table 62, the OTA/NAS survey offirms in the United States found that bioprocessengineers constitute approximately 7 percent ofthe current biotechnology R&D work force andwill constitute 8 percent of all new hirees overthe next 18 months. Specialists in microbiologyconstitute 13 percent of current employees and13 percent of the employees to be hired in thenext 18 months. Biochemists constitute 13 per-cent of current employees and will constitute 10percent of new hirees in the next 18 months.

SPECIALISTS IN ALL ASPECTS OFBIOTECHNOLOGY: ENZYMOLOGISTS AND CELL

CULTURE SPECIALISTS

Enzymologists and cell culture specialists areimportant for many aspects of biotechnology. Ad-vances in the understanding of enzyme structureand function are important in developing the po-tential of biocatalyst for product formation. Cellculture is used at early R&D stages, but it is be-coming increasingly important for the large-scalegrowth of higher organism cells, especially hy -bridomas. As shown in table 62, according to theOTA/NAS survey, enzymologists constitute 9 per-cent of current biotechnology employment inR&D; cell culture specialists constitute 7 percent


336 ● Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis

Table 63.—Shortages in Major Categories of Ph. D. Biotechnology R&D Personnel in Firms in the United States(OTAINAS Survey)

Number of firms

Experiencing shortages Experiencing shortages Not experiencing shortagesArea of technical and plan to hire in and do not plan to hire in but plan to hire inexpertise (Ph. D.) the next 18 months the next 18 months the next 18 months

Bioprocess engineering , ., . . . 11Recombinant DNA . . . . . . . . . . 10Gene synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Plant molecular biology. . . . . . 4Industrial microbiology . . . . . . 3SOURCE Office of Technology Assessment

II, U.S. chemical companies switched from bio-mass to petroleum feedstocks and consequentlydecreased their demand for bioprocess engineer-ing and applied biology programs. Conditions inJapan, the Federal Republic of Germany, and theUnited Kingdom have differed markedly fromthose in the United States; in these countries, bothpublic and industrial support have helped main-tain a strong academic base for the microbial andbioprocess industries over the past several years(12).

The late David Perlmann wrote in 1973 (8):

The interest in the U.S. has shifted in the past20 Years toward molecular biology. Few students.are being trained for the fermentation industries.In the long run, this has worked to the disadvan-tage of the industries. Unless present trends inthe U.S. are reversed, we can expect that in thefuture it will be desirable to send our studentsto Japan to learn the techniques that will assurethe continuation of the fermentation industriesin the United States.

This situation does not appear to have changedmuch in the last 10 years.

The OTA/NAS survey also showed that 10 of39 companies planning to hire Ph. D. specialistsin rDNA in the next 18 months are experiencingshortages. Much of the R&D activity now in thecommercialization of biotechnology is in this area,and, thus, the demand for these specialists is high.However, as companies move toward production,the demand for scale-up and downstream proc-essing specialists will increase, while the demandfor the more basic scientists will not. Thus, thecurrent shortages of bioprocess engineers and in-dustrial microbiologists are considered to be moreserious.

1 151 293 74 154 14

The shortages in biotechnology personnel in theUnited States may be partially counteracted bya flow of skilled foreign personnel into the UnitedStates. * A representative of one U.S. companystated that of the company’s R&D staff of 130,13 were foreign nationals (9 Ph. D.s). The foreignnationals were from Taiwan, India, Canada, andHong Kong, and had expertise in nucleotide chem-istry, applied microbiology, and bioprocess engi-neering. U.S. companies using biotechnologymight be hiring an even greater percentage offoreign technical personnel if cumbersome andstrict immigration regulations did not exist.

Availability of biotechnologypersonnel in other countries

The number of scientists and engineers engagedin R&D activities in the United States, Japan, theFederal Republic of Germany, the United King-dom, and France is shown in table 64. As can beseen from that table, in 1977, the United Stateshad more R&D scientists and engineers than anyof its principal competitors in biotechnology.Japan had the second largest number, with halfthat of the United States. The size of a country’sR&D labor force is one measure of a nation’s R&Dcapacity. It is only an approximate measure, how-ever, because it does not take into account suchfactors as the level of sophistication or specializa-tion, utilization, or productivity of a country’sR&D personnel. Furthermore, these data cannot

—“Reliance on foreign R&D personnel has been common in other

L},S, high.tmhno]o~v industries. Many semiconductor and COrnPUtercompanies hire foreigners in order to compensate for shortages ofLI.S. e]ectrica] engineers. Al [rite] (L’.s. ), for instance, 50 percent ofthe engineers holding M.S. degrees and 64 percent of the engineers

with Ph. D.s are foreign ( 15),

Ch. 14—Personnel Availability and Training . 337

Table 64.-Number of Scientists and Engineers Engaged in R&D by Country, 1977

Number of Scientists and engineersCountry scientists and engineers as percentage of work force

United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573,900 0.580/oJapan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272,000 0.50Federal Republic of Germany . . . . . . 111,000 0.44United Kingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80,700a 0.31France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68,000 0.30a1975SOURCE National Science Foundation, Scierrce Indicators, 1990, Report of the National Science Board, Washington, DC , 1961

be dissected into the percentage of biological per-sonnel.

There are few statistics documenting numbersof specific types of biotechnology personnel incountries other than the United States. For thatreason, shortages and surpluses in foreign coun-tries are difficult to identify. Nevertheless, distinctpatterns with respect to the availability of biotech-nology personnel in foreign countries can be dis-cerned through an examination of available gov-ernment policy documents and other supportingevidence.

JAPAN

Several experts noted that in the early 1980’s,Japan experienced a shortage of experts in genet-ic manipulation. This shortage was undoubtedlydue to the inadequacy of the basic biological sci-ences in the universities. * Japanese universitieshave received limited Government support for ba-sic research, so most Japanese universities havenot developed extensive research programs in thebasic biological sciences. Japan’s public universi-ties have been a relatively minor source of highlytrained personnel in rDNA and hybridoma tech-niques (35). Thus, Japanese companies have hadto look to other sources of trained basic biologicalscientists. Some companies have started in-housetraining programs. Japanese companies have alsohired Japanese researchers from abroad, sent em-ployees to be trained abroad and at Japaneseuniversities, and recruited midcareer researchersfrom other Japanese companies (35). The last op-

“There is little communication between the basic and appliedsrirnc(> departments in Japanese uni~’ersities Onl} t hr app]ie(iwience departments hat’r traditionally’ maintained close relation-ships urith industry, k’or a more extensi~v description of the Japaneseuni~ersitj sjstem and its relationship ~~ith inciustr}’, see [.’hapter17: [ ‘[Ii\er.sit.\,7r1d11stq\ Relationships

tion is particular unique for Japan, a countrynoted for a lack of personnel mobility. The ex-tensive effort exhibited by Japanese companiesseems to have overcome the personnel shortagesdocumented a few years ago.

The supply of bioprocess engineers and indus-trial microbiologists is larger in Japan than in anyof the competitor countries. Japanese Govern-ment officials monitoring biotechnology have in-dicated that the supply of personnel to handle thechallenges of scale-up in Japan is not an area ofconcern (19)35). In fact, a major proportion of bio-technologists in Japan have their background inmicrobial physiology, an area of neglect in everycountry examined here except Japan (29).

The specialties of bioprocess engineering andindustrial microbiology are strong in Japaneseuniversities in part because the specialty chemicaland other industries using traditional bioproc-esses in Japan have kept the demand for gradu-ates in these specialties high. After World WarII, when chemical companies throughout theworld largely switched to processes using petro-leum feedstocks, Japanese chemical companies re-tained some processes using biomass feedstocksand came to dominate the international aminoacid market. Furthermore, applied biology depart-ments at Japanese universities have kept in closecontact with industry representatives. Each year,75 students in applied biochemistry graduatefrom Tokyo University alone; half go on to grad-uate studies, and half of these go beyond theirM.S. degrees. Most are employed by Japan’s lead-ing bioprocess companies (35).

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

The Federal Republic of Germany has sufficientpersonnel to compete with the United States and

338 Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis——

* Biogen S ,A, is one of the tour principal operating subsidiariesof lli(~gen N.\’,, whirh is registered in the h’etherlands Antilles. BiogenX .\’ is atmut M)-per(wnt [ 1 ,S. -mtnml.

Ch. 14—Personnel Availability and Training ● 339——

Personnel training —.

education in theother countries

● F’ot gfIn(JI’al information” on s(’ience an(i engineering f~clucalion

an(l personrwl i[ltf>l’Ilii tloIlall)”, S(X’ (39)

—

340 ● Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis—

nology. Nevertheless, interest in plant molecularbiology is increasing dramatically. Botanists arelearning the new techniques, and biomedicallytrained researchers are applying their expertiseto plants. Because of the separation of agriculturalresearchers and plant molecular biologists in theUnited States, however, there are problems ofcommunication between these groups which mayslow research advances (34).

There is a growing concern that a shortage ofplant molecular biology professors in the UnitedStates could result from a drain of Ph. D. plantmolecular biologists from U.S. universities to in-dustry (25). As numerous companies have startedefforts in plant molecular biology and existingcompanies have expanded into plant molecularbiology, industry has been competitively recruit-ing university researchers. As shown in table 65,according to the OTA/NAS survey, all of the com-panies wanting to employ Ph.D. plant molecularbiologists intend to hire from academia, and halfintend to hire from industry as well.

Bioprocess engineering education in the UnitedStates, now almost exclusively provided in univer-sity chemical engineering departments at thegraduate level, * is closely tied to training oppor-tunities in chemical engineering (12). Between1970 and 1980, the number of Ph. D.s graduatingin chemical engineering declined by nearly 25 per-cent, and the bioprocess subset of the chemical

“~!t the undergraduate lek’el, there are only two accredited bio-engineering (distinct from biomedical engineering) programs in theIInited States, one at the LJni\erSity of Illinois at Chicago and oneat ‘1’exas A&%!.

Table 65.—Sources of New Ph. D. Biotechnology R&D PersonnelIn Selected Categories in Firms in the United States

(OTAINAS Sumey)

Companies planning to Companies planning to Companies planning tohire from industry hire from academia retrain current staff

Area of technical expertise Percent Percent Percent(Ph. D.) Number of totala Number of totala Number of totala

Recombinant DNA . . . . . . . . . 15 380/o 35 84 ”/0 3 7“/0Gene synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . 9 64 13 93 3 21Industrial microbiology . . . . . 11 67 13 81 2 13Bioprocess engineering . . . . 19 86 11 50 2 9Plant molecular biology . . . . 9 50 18 100 3 17af+efer~ t. percent of ~ompanie~ that both indicated plans to hire in the specialty area and revealed the sources from which they would hire new Personnel, Many

companies indicated more than one hiring source for each specialty area.

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment.


342 Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis

Ch. 14—Personnel Availability and Training 343

Transnational training in theUnited States and other countries

A trend evident in many scientific and technicalfields, including biotechnology, is the training ofincreasing numbers of foreign students in theUnited States. In 1982, foreign students consti-tuted 2.6 percent of the total U.S. universityenrollment, and 23 percent of the foreign stu-dents enrolled at U.S. universities were studyingengineering. In 1981, for the first time, moreforeigners than Americans received doctoral de-grees in engineering in U.S. graduate programs(15). The proportion of foreign students in Amer-ican postdoctoral engineering programs was morethan 60 percent. Furthermore, foreign studentsconstituted a third of all postdoctoral students inAmerican science and engineering programs (26).These numbers illustrate the esteem with whichU.S. science and engineering education is heldthroughout the world (43).

In the areas of molecular biology and immunol-ogy, foreign nationals are actively seeking train-ing at U.S. institutions. Hoechst’s (F. R. G.) 10-year,$70 million contract with Massachusetts GeneralHospital, for example, was, in part, establishedto train Hoechst’s personnel at Harvard MedicaISchool (21). *

NIH has several programs that sponsor researchby foreign nationals in NIH laboratories. Underthe “visiting program, ” NIH sponsors and paysvisiting scientists studying at NIH labs. In 1983,810 foreign nationals were enrolled in this pro-gram. Of these visiting scientists, 158 were fromJapan, 97 from India, 62 from Italy, 27 fromFrance, and 6 from the United Kingdom. Underthe ‘(guest researchers program, ” foreign na-tionals are sponsored by their native country. In1983, 32 Japanese were enrolled, 23 Italians, 21French, 10 Indians, and 4 British (36).

Japanese personnel trained in the United Statesare now being actively recruited by Japanese

● This arrangement is discussed in Appendix H: Selected ~spectsof” 1‘,S. [ Initersit.}’ ‘7ndtlstr:v Relationships.

344 . Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis

firms. In a 1982 Keidanren survey* of 60 Japa-nese companies using biotechnology, 35 per-cent of the companies were active in recruitingresearchers already studying or working abroad(35). When the Japanese company Suntory hirednew employees for about one-third of the 126research positions in its Biomedical Research In-stitute established in 1979, for example, many ofthe new employees were Japanese who had beenworking abroad (35).

The larger more established Japanese compa-nies sponsor translational training of their em-ployees. Sixty-two percent of Japanese companiesresponding to the 1982 Keidanren survey indi-cated that some scientific and engineering per-sonnel would be sent abroad for training in spe-cialized technologies (35).

Foreign nationals are being trained not only atuniversity and government centers in the UnitedStates, but at U.S. companies looking for supple-mental sources of revenue. Five corporate re-searchers from Japan recently attended a 3-month course at Genex in rDNA technology of-fered at $120,000 per person. According to theJapanese companies, they learned “highly specificknowledge . . . and key points for developingspecific products by using the rDNA technology ”(18).

Amid all the evidence that foreign countries aremaking use of U.S. training facilities, data showthat U.S. doctoral graduates are going abroad forpostdoctoral study less frequently. During thedecade of the 1970’s, postdoctoral training abroaddecreased by nearly 50 percent (26), In biotech-nology especially, postgraduate training abroadappears to be an area poorly funded by the UnitedStates. Professor Arnold Demain, for example, hasindicated that 8 of the 11 students currentlyenrolled in his graduate program in industrialmicrobiology at Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (MIT) are foreigners, all sponsored eitherby their government or company. Money to sendAmericans overseas to do postdoctoral work in— . . —

“ Keidanren, the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations,is a national organization composed of about 700 of’ the largest.lapanese companies. It enjoys the regular and acti~e participationof the top business leaciers working rloselJ’ with a large professionalstaff to forge agreements on behalf of business as a whole. It oft[’rlsur~’evs its members on issues of eronomir importance.

industrial microbiology, however, is not avail -able (7).

Midcareer retraining in theUnited States and other countries

To address the challenges of biotechnology, in-dustrial scientists and engineers can probably beretrained. Retraining in the United States is oftenviewed as the responsibility of the individual sci-.entist or engineer and not that of the employer,with some exceptions (see below). A problem isthat it is very difficult for a scientist or engineerin midcareer to take a year off to go back toschool.

Reflecting concern over this situation, four sen-ior professors at MIT recently published a reportadvocating “lifelong cooperative education” (48).The report’s major recommendation was that en-gineering schools and neighboring industries col-laborate in making off-campus graduate programsavailable to working engineers. Although thereport was addressed specifically to the electricalengineering department of MIT, it could also beaddressed to a larger community, and many ofits recommendations may apply to biotechnology.For example, MIT Professor Daniel Wang recentlystated that chemical engineers who “don’t knowthe faintest thing about how proteins are iso-lated)” if taught some basic protein chemistry,could develop new techniques for large-scale pur-ification (17). Historically, chemical engineersin the United States have been retrained by phar-maceutical companies to be bioprocess engi-neers (7).

As shown in table 65, a relatively small percent-age of the 95 companies responding to the OTA/NAS survey intend to retrain their workers to fillvacancies in areas of biotechnology personnelshortages. For most categories of Ph. D. person-nel, hiring from academia is considered the op-timal choice. In the case of Ph. D.s in bioprocessengineering, however, 86 percent of the compa-nies planning to hire Ph. D. bioprocess engineersintend to hire them away from other companies,50 percent plan to hire from academia; only 9percent of the companies plan to retrain. * one

“’1’hesr perrrntages f~xceed 100, I)ecaus(’ s o m e (wmpanies indi-

(’at(’d nlorr than one turing sourer.

Ch. 14—Personnel Availability and Training 345—— ———

Findings

The OTA/NAS survey of 95 companies using ber is expected to increase about 30 percent overbiotechnology in the [Jnited States suggests that the next year, it is unlikely that a 30-percent an-approximately 5,OOO w’orkers are no\~’ doing bio- nual growth rate can be maintained over the nexttechnology R&D in the 219 companies using bio - decade. The commercialization of biotechnologytechnology in the IJnited States. Though the num- is unlikely to contribute directly to large increases

25-561 0 - 84 - 23

346 Commercial Biotechnology: An International Analysis———- .———— - ———

in employment. Bioprocess technology, an essen-tial part of industrial biotechnology activities, isnot labor intensive.

About one-third of the technical personnel cur-rently employed in 95 surveyed companies usingbiotechnology are specialists in basic science areasrelated to genetic manipulation: rDNrA/moleculargenetics and hybridoma/MAb technology. Special-ists in these categories will continue to be impor-tant to biotechnology R&D, and more hirees areexpected. Another third of the technical person-nel currently employed by the US. companiesusing biotechnology are specialists in areas of ap-plied science related to scale-up and downstreamprocessing: microbiology, biochemistry, and bio-process engineering. Of these categories, onlyhirees in bioprocess engineering will increaseover the next 18 months. About one.fifth of thebiotechnology work force are specialists in areasimportant to all aspects of biotechnology: enzy-mology and cell culture. The balance of peopleare specialists in such fields as pharmacology andtoxicology.

The United States currently has a competitiveedge in the supply of scientific personnel able tomeet corporate needs for R&D in rDNA and hy -bridoma technology. This edge is primarily dueto generous Federal support for university lifescience research since World War II. Never-theless, the supply of Ph. D. specialists in plantmolecular biology and in applied disciplines suchas bioprocess engineering and industrial micro-biology may be inadequate for U.S. corporateneeds. It may be difficult to alleviate rapidly theshortage of engineers because of the shortage ofPh. D. engineers serving as university faculty andthe lack of governmental training programs. Toan extent, foreign technical personnel are allevi-ating some of the industrial shortages.

With the exception of France, the other com-petitor countries have adequate supplies of basicbiological scientists. French companies are import-ing foreign specialists. German and Japanese com-panies, where slight shortages do exist, are mak-ing efforts to train some of their personnel abroadand to retrain workers. Some Japanese companiesare making successful efforts to repatriate Japa-nese workers trained overseas.

Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, andthe United Kingdom, unlike the United States,maintained a steady supply of both industrial andgovernment funding for applied microbiology andbioprocess engineering after World War II. Ja-pan’s supply of scale-up personnel appears to besufficient. However, the United Kingdom andWest Germany are suffering from a brain drainto foreign countries (in particular to the UnitedStates), and shortages of scale-up personnel mayoccur.

The United States has very few undergraduateor graduate interdisciplinary programs in biotech-nology. Consequently, in the agricultural fields,for example, there are communication barriersbetween classical plant breeders and plant mo-lecular biologists. Bioprocess engineering educa-tion in the United States is provided almost ex-clusively at the graduate level and is closely tiedto training opportunities in chemical engineeringwith few interactions occurring between biolo-gists and engineers. Funds for Ph. D. and post-graduate education in bioprocess engineering inthe United States have been inadequate for thetraining of sufficient numbers of specialists forindustry and academia. Furthermore, the high in-dustrial demand for Ph. D. bioprocess engineersis likely to create a shortage of university facultyin the field,

Universities in the United Kingdom, in contrastto their counterparts in the United States, havelong had interdisciplinary programs in biotech-nology, and the British Government is encourag-ing the formation of overarching biotechnologyprograms in those universities where they do notalready exist. Though France, the Federal Repub-lic of Germany, and Japan have systematic bar-riers to interdisciplinary programs, their govern-ments are utilizing national research institutesto facilitate interdisciplinary research in biotech-nology.

The funding by foreign governments and com-panies for the training of domestic workers over-seas is far more extensive than that of organi-zations within the United States. In fact, in bio-technology-related areas, the U.S. Governmentappears to fund more the training of overseas

Ch. 14—Personnel Availability and Training 347

nationals in the United States than the trainingof U.S. nationals abroad.

Switzerland, which has not been extensively dis-cussed in this chapter, appears to have no troublemeeting the personnel needs in either its uni-versities or companies developing biotechnology.Particularly in relation to the size of the coun-try, Swiss academic institutions show unusualstrength in both basic and applied research rele-vant to biotechnology. Swiss companies seekingto develop and expand their expertise in thesetechnologies may choose to work with the quali -

Issues and

ISSUE 1: HOW could

fied Swiss researchers in the university or mayrecruit foreign scientists, with apparently littledifficulty, to work in Slvitzerland (20).

Retraining of corporate workers in biotechnol-ogy is being pursued more actively in foreigncountries than in the United States. Japanese com-panies, in particular, make a regular practice ofsending their workers to be retrained at Japaneseand foreign universities and research institutions.Only a very small percentage of companies usingbiotechnology in the United States intend to re-train their workers in areas of personnel scarcity.

options

training for biotechnol-ogy at the graduate–and postdoctorallevels be improved?

The United States appears to be suffering short-ages of Ph. D. plant molecular biologists, appliedmicrobiologists, and bioprocess engineers in itsbiotechnology-related industries. Although im-proved science education at the secondary schooland undergraduate level could enhance the de-velopment of biotechnology in the future, thegraduate level seems to be the best place to ad-dress the shortages of certain types of personnel.

For the past several years, U.S. Governmentfunding for research in the areas of plant molec-ular biology, applied microbiology, and bioprocessengineering has been far less than funding forresearch in animal and bacterial molecular biol-ogy and immunology. Increasing Federal fundingfor research grants in plant molecular biology,applied microbiology, and bioprocess engineer-ing, by encouraging more investigators to enterthese fields, could help alleviate shortages of per-sonnel. Since fields of faculty endeavor are at leastpartially determined by the availability of re-search grants, increased funding for researchmight encourage training and indirectly preventfuture shortages of faculty. Options for directingresearch funds toward areas of personnel short-ages are discussed in Chapter 13: GovernmentFunding of Basic and Applied Research.

Another area where more Federal researchfunding could potentially reduce personnel short-ages is that of interdisciplinary research. The in-terdisciplinary nature of biotechnology requiresresearch collaboration among people with back-grounds in biology, engineering, and chemistry.Options that Congress could take to encourageinterdisciplinary research are discussed below.

0PTION 1: Authorize increased funding for LISDA,

NIH, and NSF graduate and postdoctoraltraining grants in plant molecular biology,applied microbiology, and bioprocess en -

gineering.

The lack of training grants is probably the singlemost outstanding reason for U.S. shortages in se-lected areas of biotechnology personnel. Thereare no NIH or NSF training grants for industrialmicrobiology or process engineering. The U.S. De-partment of Agriculture (USDA) this past yeargave only five training fellowships in plant sci-ence. NSF until recently had no training grantsat all in plant science, although in May of 1983,NSF’s Biological and Behavioral Directorate ap-proved 24 postdoctoral fellowships for study inplant cell biology.

In fields such as molecular biology, competitivetraining grants have been one of the most effec-tive uses of Government funds for graduate andpostdoctoral education. Training grants encour-


age university departments to carry on a cohesivetraining program and allow money from facultyresearch grants to be used for research insteadof salaries. The institution of adequate traininggrants in the areas of plant molecular biology, ap-plied microbiology, and bioprocess engineeringwould be a long-term strategy to counter person-nel shortages in these areas. Such grants couldbe administered by NIH (for applied microbiologyand plant biology), USDA (for plant biology), andNSF (for all three).

OPTION 2: Continue to support special incentives toencourage young engineers to stay inacademia.

The shortage of engineering faculty at U.S. uni-versities could seriously hamper efforts to in-crease the number of qualified engineers, includ-ing bioprocess engineers, in the United States. Therecently instituted Presidential Young InvestigatorAwards to be administered by NSF is an exam-ple of the sort of special incentives program thatCongress could continue to support to counteractthe shortage of engineering faculty. Two hundredof these awards, 100 of which are to go to engi-neers, are to be awarded each year for 5 yearsto scientists and engineers in academia who havefewer than 7 years postdoctoral experience. Eachaward could total up to $100,000 per year for 5years. The first $25,000 per year is to come fromNSF. Industry funding for the engineers, of upto $37,500 per year, is matched by NSF, givingthe total amount of $100,000.

OPTION 3: Specific that a certain percentage of NSFgraduate and postdoctoral grants be usedfor training in other countries and author-ize NIH and other relevant agencies to ini-tiate researcher exchanges with other in-dustrialized countries.

Increasingly fewer U.S. Ph. D.s are doing post-doctoral work abroad, while the number of for-eign Ph. D.s doing postdoctoral work in the UnitedStates is increasing. The U.S. Government sup-ports the training of its nationals overseas far lessthan its industrialized competitors.

Foreign countries have many significant andgrowing research programs in biotechnology that

U.S. researchers could fruitfully be visiting-e. g.,Japan’s Fermentation Research Institute and Uni-versity of Tokyo; the Society for BiotechnologicalResearch (GBF) in Braunschweig, Federal Republicof Germany; and the John Innes Institute andPlant Breeding Institute in the United Kingdom.Few Americans are studying at those institutions.Though NSF’s Science and Engineering Director-ates can give grants to students studying overseas,such grants are not generally given because theyare usually more costly than regular grants.

NSF’s Science, Technology, and International Af-fairs Directorate has an International Coopera-tion and Scientific Activities program that pro-vides special funds for researchers to studyabroad—funds that can supplement the grants ofother programs within NSF. One advantage of au-thorizing more money for this program is thatthis program has had experience negotiatingstandards of bilateral student exchange withforeign governments, having negotiated a suc-cessful bilateral agreement with France. In mostforeign countries, American students cannotstudy at the best institutions (usually national)without the proper contacts and encouragementof the domestic government.

Congress could also specify that the NSF inter-national grants that are given have a clearer train-ing component. Currently, even the internationalfellowship grants are evaluated on the basis oftheir proposed research, rather than the qualityof training for the US, nationals. It should benoted, however, that setting aside a part of NSFinternational grants for graduate and postdoctoraltraining would probably reduce the current per-centage of international grants given to juniorprofessors.

NIH’s unilateral programs to support the studyand research of foreign postdoctoral personnelin the United States could also be expanded tosupport the study of American nationals overseas.Since the United States is not the sole source ofadvanced R&D capability, Congress could author-ize NIH to formulate programs that result in re-ciprocal exchanges and postdoctoral research op-portunities for American scientists and engineersin areas of foreign expertise.

Ch, 14—Personnel Availability and Training ● 349

ISSUE 2: How could Congress improve inter-actions between classical plant biol-ogists and plant molecular biolo-gists?

Many people would argue that the agriculturalresearch system in the United States does notneed to be improved because the United Stateshas the most productive agricultural system inthe world. Nevertheless, there are specific areaswhere some advances in plant science, aided bynew biotechnology, may be crucial to feeding theworld’s population in the coming years. These ad-vances can be made only with the interaction ofclassical plant breeders and plant molecular bi-ologists. Yet, because of the historical separationof agricultural researchers and plant molecularbiologists in the United States, these groups donot have established communication networks.Most of the classical plant breeders are trainedat agricultural research stations and land grantcolleges, whereas most of the plant molecular bi-ologists were originally trained in biochemistry,bacterial genetics, and animal biology (funded ex-tensively by NIH) and are now working at the uni-versities where much of the molecular biology isdone. The lack of interaction between these twodisciplines puts the United States at a disadvan-tage in modern agricultural research. *

The agricultural surpluses that the United Stateshas today could vanish in a single year and prob-ably are temporary. Greater productivity will benecessary as we move into the 21st century. TheUnited States is also depleting its water resourcesand its topsoil. Advances in biotechnology cancontribute to the solution of these problems withthe development of plants that need less water,have greater nutritive value, and are more resist -ant to the high saline content of irrigation water.The costs of production can be lowered if plantsare pest-resistant, and fewer fertilizers will beneeded if plants can fix their own nitrogen. Theseadvances cannot be made without greater interac-

● The administration of’ basic research in agriculture has recent-

lj been rmi(’i~f’d b~ sm era] agencies [5,34,41). Changes in the ad-

ministration of L’SDA research will be extremel~ important to thedirertion of de~wlopment of biotechnology in agriculture. A pro-posal within LISDA to significantly increase the competiti~e grants

in plant biok)~y has recentl}~ been put)lished (2.5). Howe~’er, an assess-

ment of the LISDA twhn ical and administrate ii’e infrastructurf~ is

t)e~ond the sropr of this rf~port.

tion between classical plant breeders and plantmolecular biologists. The Federal Government isspending about $20 billion on an acreage diver-sion program. This money subsidizes the marketprice, but does not address the central agricul-tural production issue, the farmer’s low profitmargin. Diverting a portion of this money to re-search on plant genetics could go a long waytoward reducing agricultural production costs.

OPTION 1: Legislate the creation of one or more plantresearch institutes.

A plant research institute was established underthe Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) managementand with cooperation from the State of Michiganin 1965. DOE’s contribution to this effort was$1.65 million in fiscal year 1983 and will be $1.7million in fiscal year 1984. This is a beginningtoward solving some of the problems of commu-nication among biologists of different disciplines,but it is only one effort.

The creation of several more plant research in-stitutes could facilitate interdisciplinary researchbetween classical plant biologists and plant mo-lecular biologists, although there could be someproblems. First, a large amount of money wouldbe required. Second, scientists to work in the in-stitute would have to be drawn from other insti-tutions, thereby possibly causing a shortage ofteaching faculty. Faculty shortages could be par-tially alleviated if the institute were located neara major research university or land grant college.Third, it is not obvious what agency would ad-minister the institute. DOE is one choice becauseit already has experience with one institute. USDAis another choice, but recent studies (see preced-ing footnote) have suggested that the research sta-tions it already administers have not kept up-to-date with the latest molecular techniques beingapplied to plants. NIH, which is well versed in mo-lecular biology, is not an ideal agency to admin-ister an essentially agricultural program, NSFmight be a candidate to administer a new plantresearch institute because of its interdisciplinarystaff,

OPTION 2: Establish grants for cooperative researchbetween classical and molecular plant bi-ologists from different institutions.


An increase in funding alone would facilitateinteraction between classical and molecular plantbiologists. Because of its interdisciplinary focus,NSF might be the agency to administer thesegrants.

Careful specification of requests for proposalsand monitoring of the grants by technically qual-ified staff would be needed to ensure that the re-search that is funded is truly cooperative. Other-wise, some researchers experiencing difficultiesin obtaining research funding might be temptedto cooperate in proposal writing in order to ob-tain a grant and then carry out independentresearch.

ISSUE 3: How could the retraining of indus-trial personnel in biotechnology beimproved?

The OTA/NAS survey of companies using bio-technology in the United States shows that thereis little retraining of personnel in this field. Thissituation is probably due, in part, to the fact thatmany of the US. companies using biotechnologyare small and have neither the resources nor in-centives to retrain personnel. These small com-panies depend on their ability to attract alreadyhighly qualified personnel. However, the pharma -

ceutical industry has shown that chemical engi-neers can be retrained in bioprocess engineering.

Continuing education sponsored by large U.S.companies, in general, takes place through shortcourses or joint research performed at universi-ties. University/industry training and researchagreements in biotechnology are being developedwithout the assistance of the Federal Government.But the Government could further encourage re-training in biotechnology by increasing fundingfor NSF’s Industry/University Cooperative CentersProgram, which provides seed money for a uni-versity to set up a research center with industrialpartners. This option is discussed in Chapter 13:Government Funding of Basic and Applied Re-search.

Whether human resources in the United Statesare used and retrained adequately is a larger, na-tional question that addresses the transition of theU.S. labor force from declining to growing indus-trial sectors. Suggestions to encourage more re-training have included revision of the tax codeto encourage business loans to employees for re-training and an extension of unemployment in-surance to include payment for retraining. Thecomparative evaluation of measures such as thesethat include other disciplines is beyond the scopeof this study.

Chapter 14 references

1. Abelson, P. H., “Science and Engineering Educa-tion, ” Science 210:965, 1980.

2. Advisory Council for Applied Research and Devel-opment, Advisory Board for the Research Coun-cils, and The Royal Society, “Biotechnology: Reportof a Joint Working Party” (Spinks’ Report) (Lon-don: H. M. Stationery Office, March 1980).

3. AFP Sciences, “Scientific Research Policy andOrganization, ” July 22, 1982, pp. 4-5.

4. ASM News, “Shockman Testifies on ManpowerNeeds . . . ,“ 48(8):349-350, 1982.

5. Bentley, O., “Perspective on Agricultural Research, ”Science 219:4584, 1983.

6. Chemical and Engineering News, “Foreign Precol-lege Curricula Gives Strong Dose of Science, ” Jan.25, 1982, p. 42.

7, Demain, A., Professor of Industrial Microbiology,hlassachusetts Institute of Technology, personaIcommunication, 1983.

8. Demain, A. L., and Solomon, N. A., “Responsibilitiesin the Development of Biotechnology, ” Bioscience33(4):239, 1983.

9. Dunnet, J. S., “Brain Drain Threatens Progress, ”Nature 302:644, 1983,

10. Feinberg, L., ‘(Panel LJrges Measures To Halt De-cline of Education in America, ” Washington Post,Apr. 27, 1983, p. 1.

11. Feldman, M., and O’hlalley, E. P., The Biotechnol-ogy Industry in California, contract paper pre-pared for the California Commission on Industri-al Innovation, Sacramento, Calif., August 1982.

12. Gaden, E., “Bioprocess Technology: An Analysis

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46. Walgate) R., “La Loi at Last,” Nature 298:1 10, 1982. 49. Worthy, W., “Classroom Crisis in Science and47. lValsh, J., “T roub l e i n Sc i ence and Eng inee r ing Math,” Chemical and Engineering News, July 19,

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Science 2 18:269, 1982.

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Chapter 14 Personnel Availability and Training