Changing Demographics in Academia and Biotechnology: Are we Ensuring the Future Work Force Will Be Ready to Meet the Challenges in the 21st Century?

In the last decade across America, institutions of higher education are experiencing changes in their demographic student population including the non-traditional older part time student. As biotechnology continues to provide solutions to challenging global concerns and problems dealing with health, agriculture, and the environment, what innovative approaches are academia and industry providing to ensure that we have a workforce ready and able to meet these challenges? Are some states more pro-active than others and can this be aligned to the top biotechnology hot spots in the USA? Examples of some programs will be described and some thought provoking ideas for future training of the biotechnology workforce that will undoubtedly be coming from under-represented minorities and women.