Introducing new contributing members

Holiday Greetings to all of the Frederk County Biotechnology Community out there in the internets, assuming your access is not restricted by Big Brother !  As some of you may know, I started working in Cleveland first week in December on a consulting project.  I don’t want to discuss details publicly, but suffice to say it is a very important project, I’m working with a group of excellent consultants (one ‘old’ friend from LTI and one former FMC MedImmune person in the 20 on site), being in Cleveland is like my second home, money is good and I love driving on the PA Turnpike.

While I am pre-occupied in Ohio a couple of benevolent volunteers stepped forward to help keep BioBeers and the blog running.  Since we have a recurring occupancy of ImQuest Biosciences,  Susan Jessee has graciously volunteered to  take a lead role in organizing the Event and I am working with her while I am in town this week as to dump as much on her as I can.

Also on the rolls is Terrence Brann, a former LTI, GTI, ONCOR & SAIC-Frederick worker “between jobs,” as we say in this day and age.

So, I encourage you all to be as supportive and useful as always and help us keep the momentum rolling while I spend a few quality months-years in the Great White North.

I want to personally thank you all for being there for me and making Frederick County Biotech better than the rest.  We are “leading the way” and our quest is spreading through the “other” counties in the State that seem to get all of the attention.

I wish you all good health, happiness and prosperity in 2012 and beyond.

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays to everyone! Jim Hardy has graciously allowed me to post to his blog. There are plans in the works for the next Biobeers meetup in January 2012, and there will be more information about that as it becomes available.

I would like to start a brainstorming session here about a favor-exchange network for the biotech/pharma community here in Maryland. I am thinking about a web-based forum in which training or services could be exchanged.

I came up with this idea due to my own situation. I have an MS in Applied Molecular Biology, and over a dozen years of experience in cell and molecular biology. I have accumulated a wide range of skills, but I don’t have hands-on experience in flow cytometry.  This has caused me to lose job opportunities. I would gladly exchange a few hours of work to someone in exchange for FACS training.  And then I realized that I am certainly not the only person with this sort of problem. 

 Even those of us who have been in research for years may have been frustrated by one small gap in our repertoire of skills.  Rather than pay thousands of dollars and hours of time to go to a formal class, wouldn’t we sometimes prefer to just get some training in one particular technique from a colleague, in exchange for a few hours of our own time or expertise? Or maybe you need a microarray analysis done, but you don’t have the equipment. So you locate a colleague who has the equipment, and agree to perform some other task or analysis for them.  Recent graduates without much money or resources could spend a few hours counting plaques or colonies, defrosting freezers, or decontaminating hoods in exchange for training in a particular technique. How interested would you be in a formal website that allowed these connections to be made?