Name: Dr. Alicia Löffler
Occupation: Executive Director of the Northwestern University Center for Biotechnology, Evanston, Ill., 1997-present.
Backround: Born and raised in suburban Buenos Aires, Argentina. Moved to the United States upon graduating from high school. Professional positions include: Northwestern University Center for Biotechnology, acting director, 1995-1997; associate director, 1992-1995; head of food/agricultural biotechnology, 1987-1990. California Institute of Technology, visiting faculty, 1986.
Education: Post-doctoral research in biotechnology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1986. Ph.D. in microbiology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1985. Master of Science in microbiology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1982. Bachelor of Science in biology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1980. Member of the Governor’s Biotechnology Advisory Council, CBC BIO Biotechnology Industry Organization (chair elect) and BIO Emerging Biotechnology Companies Governing Board.
PBN: What is the Center for Biotechnology’s mission?
Löffler: Our center has two roles. One is education and the other is technology enhancement. We do a variety of things. We run the masters program in biotechnology. We do a lot of outreach programs too. The purpose of those outreach programs is to show the advances in biotechnology to the public. Our biggest show is the Summer Biotechnology Institute. It’s an institute that we run every summer in July. It’s free of charge and our purpose is trying to make biotechnology transparent to the public because we understand that fears create problems. We show the most recent advances in biotechnology.
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We also have some K to 12 components in which we try to develop modules in which teachers can come and learn the basics of biotechnology. We develop CD-ROMS and then we couple that with labs where we teach just the basics of biotechnology. So in education we do an array of things.
And what about in the area of technology enhancement?
In technology enhancement what we try to do is develop a community here in the Midwest. I’m well aware biotechnology is very vibrant on both Coasts, the East and the West. It doesn’t have that vitality here in the Midwest. What we’re trying to do is invigorate biotechnology in the Midwest. We do that by a variety of efforts. We’re trying to create alliances. We’re trying to develop joint efforts between academia and industry. All of that type of activity.
How does what is happening at the NUCB differ from laboratories at colleges and universities across the country?
There are many types of centers. There are research centers which are the most popular, which basically promote research at the university done by professors. There are the economic development centers, which are not university based. They are government based. They develop businesses. There are educational centers which develop programs. We fall between the education and economic development centers. Our major distinction is we’re the first developing program that integrates business, science and social issues.
What kinds of careers await someone graduating with a degree in biotechnology?
We started the program five years ago and initially most of the people came with the idea of going back into research. But biotechnology by definition is bringing products to the market. And you cannot do that without knowing the business side. One additional component of biotechnology is that it’s very intertwined with the social issues. The relationship between biotechnology and society started in 1976 when the first recombinant experiments came about (recombinant technology refers to a cell or organism resulting from the rejoining of genes in the DNA molecule) people in ethics were very worried about the consequences of genetic engineering. And since then the public got involved in biotechnology and will be involved forever. It’s involved not only as a customer, but also as a moral gatekeeper and an investor. Most of the biotech companies rely on the public money to survive.
Biotechnology careers integrate all that. The business side and the ethics side. Most of our students when they graduate from our program end up in business development, on Wall Street, in marketing, finance. Some of them are going into ethics – into groups that think very hard about these issues. Those groups could be in hospitals. They are also in many biotech companies. So it is a whole array of opportunities.
What is the employment market like for graduates of your 13-month program or anyone else entering into the biotech field?
The market has been incredible. The biotech industry has been growing at 20 percent a year. There has been 100 percent placement of our students. This year, for example, many in our class have permanent jobs and they still have many months to go. They are very selective about what jobs they want and it’s very easy to get gratifying and nice positions after graduation.
What are starting salaries like?
The starting salaries depend on where they go. I am always hesitant to give numbers. People who are going into the bioformatics (the development and application of computer systems for analyzing data from experiments) get really nice salaries. The range has been $50,000 to $80,000 (a year).
What does it take for a state to have a successful biotech community?
I’ve done a lot of thought on this because we were part of a committee for the previous governor of Illinois, which was Governor Jim Edgar. We initially started thinking well let’s list all the components that a successful state needs to have. We went through list after list and we looked at benchmarks such as Massachusetts and California. And then we realized that the most important thing is developing a good cluster. Any industry needs a cluster. If you don’t have that synergy you will not have an industry in that place. I will give you an example here in Illinois. We have very good universities. Northwestern, University of Chicago, University of Illinois. We have very good pharmaceutical companies like Baxter and Monsanto (Searle, Monsanto’s pharmaceutical division, is in Skokie, Ill.). But we don’t have a vibrant start-up activity. And the reason is we have all the components, everything that you are looking for – even a good tax system – but we’re not talking to each other. We were just doing our independent jobs. We were just not relating to each other. What we think now that we need to do is develop an infrastructure that allows us to collide with each other so that from that synergy we will develop the infrastructure for the biotech industry.
By infrastructure do you mean business incubators where start-ups can share resources?
Yes, business incubators. But it is more than that. All those support systems that have to exist in a city. The consulting system, the lawyers, all that type of support system that should exist. After the incubator, these companies will graduate into something else and we need to have the systems in place.
Also, you want to have enough companies in the city so that you can attract the best management. Managers like to stay two or three years in one place, but then they don’t want to move their families from place to place. That’s why it’s nice in California. You can jump from company to company.
Why would a state, such as Rhode Island, choose to promote biotech over some other industry?
It brings a lot of white collar jobs and well-educated people. One problem that we have here is we have the best universities and all our students (entering the biotech field) are going to the East and West Coast now. We are losing a lot of good people that would (otherwise) stay in the state and support the system. It’s very highly paid jobs.
What would you tell an investor in biotechnology stocks to look for in a company?
Good management. Usually if you have a good manager they can survive the ups and downs. You want a company that has a rich pipeline. That means it will have products in different stages. And that’s about it. Good management and a rich pipeline.
What is the most promising area of biotechnology research right now?
Last year everybody would tell you it was platforms, bioformatics. All the areas in which we know that we need products. All those areas in which we have an aging population and we will need drugs for the baby boomers when they move into the older stage. All the aging-related diseases.
