Ginkgo Bioworks is a homegrown Boston-based biotechnology company. The “Organism Company” uses their engineered high throughput automation platform to design custom organisms to impact all industries including, but not limited to, agriculture, health, therapeutics, and biosecurity.
Most recently, Ginkgo played a critical role at the onset of the pandemic to support the COVID-19 response efforts by providing process optimization for key raw materials needed in manufacturing Moderna’s mRNA vaccine. Additionally, Ginkgo committed $25 million in resources for widespread surveillance testing, vaccine manufacturing, and therapeutic discovery. That’s not all. This past May, the Organism Company made headlines announcing a $15 billion merger with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp., setting the stage for Ginkgo to become a publicly traded company.
Lily as an intern in 2009
But at one point, the more than 500 person company was once small, but nimble with only 25 employees. During these early days, they relied heavily on interns, like Lily Fitzgerald, through the MLSC Internship Challenge. The workforce development program facilitates and funds paid internship opportunities that enhance the talent pipeline for Massachusetts companies engaged in life sciences.
Lily, now Manager of Policy and Partnerships at Ginkgo Bioworks, was an undergraduate from UMass Amherst and passionate about finding a niche space to use molecular biology to address environmental problems.
“When I interviewed with Ginkgo and met the leadership team, I knew they were on to something,” said Lily. “They had this magic that they could see the world in a different way. The internship offered me an opportunity to learn to do biology in a high-throughput way, so that we can leverage more biological innovations to address big social challenges.”
At the completion of her internship, Ginkgo offered Lily a full-time position as an engineer. She was hired right around the time Ginkgo closed its Series B round of funding. It was a transformative time that took the company from 25 people to 100 in less than a year. Lily soon became involved heavily with hiring and building out a bigger pipeline of internships for Ginkgo.
Ginkgo was also a 2015, 2016 and 2019 awardee of the MLSC’s Tax Incentive program, which provides incentives to companies, of all sizes, looking to expand their efforts by creating new, long-term jobs in Massachusetts. In 2016, after a significant influx of other new hires, Ginkgo graduated out of the Internship Challenge program after being involved since the program’s inception in 2009.
Lily later switched from engineering to public policy, gaining a degree in Technology Policy from MIT and returning to Ginkgo to work on making biotechnology more just and accessible. Even after that transition and all these years, Lily still reflects admiringly on her internship, taking those experiences and values to her new role overseeing public policy for the company. As she builds out Ginkgo’s policy team and launches a public policy fellowship program for undergraduate and graduate students, Lily hopes to instill the same benefits that the MLSC Internship Challenge offered her. She also believes that internships are a powerful vehicle to increase the diversity of the life sciences sector as a whole.
“The MLSC makes biotech startups accessible for recent students, giving them an opportunity to really be part of the team,” said Lily. “It is powerful to be put into a company and given the chance to run with a project instead of being siloed. That same philosophy is incredibly
important to Ginkgo. We give interns really significant opportunities and influence. In return, we see the output of their work and the unbelievable contributions they make to their teams and the company.”
Lily had one piece of advice for students—if you’re able, look for the opportunity to get experience interning/working at a startup.
internships funded
companies have participated
different academic institutions represented
Through the MLSC’s High School Apprenticeship Challenge, 19 New Bedford High School students participated in an after-school biotechnology lab-training program of which six students had the opportunity to intern at UMass Dartmouth with professors Shakhnoza Kayumova and Tracie Ferreira. Students engaged in research that allowed them to apply their lab skills in a real-world setting, learning about mammalian cell culture, recombinant DNA technology, and drug release and biomaterial work.
The program facilitates and funds paid internships for underrepresented and economically disadvantaged high school students throughout Massachusetts, and also supports pre-internship laboratory training programs serving students in New Bedford, Brockton, Boston, Cambridge,
and Everett that provide rigorous biotechnology-biomedical and professional skills development.
This year, the MLSC provided more than $37,000 to support the New Bedford cohort, building on the MLSC’s historical investment of this program for New Bedford students now totaling $100,861 since 2019. Overall, 51 New Bedford students have participated in the program. In 2018, New Bedford High School opened its state-of-the-art Biotech Lab furnished with the latest biotechnology apparatus, equipment, tools, and supplies required of experimental protocols used by real-world scientists. The lab was a significant addition to the school’s growing complement of STEM-focused offerings for students interested in pursuing careers in science.
The Biotech Lab was made possible with a $110,000 grant from the MLSC, which enabled the high school to implement the Amgen Biotech Experience (ABE) lab series, an innovative science education program providing teacher professional development, curriculum materials, and research-grade equipment and supplies to secondary schools. In total, MLSC has invested $628,510 since 2012 to support STEM education at seven New Bedford high schools and middle schools.
Project Onramp remains ready to break down barriers and build opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds—while helping life science companies grow our Commonwealth’s labor pool and boost diversity. The MLSC was proud to continue its support of Project Onramp with $25,000 in funding for the 2021 program. The MLSC has provided $57,500 in funding support for Project Onramp since its launch in 2019, and also subsidizes intern wages for eligible companies through its Internship Challenge.
The 2021 cohort included 128 college students, and the program has facilitated a
total of 217 internships since its inception. Created and sponsored by four of the nation’s leading life science organizations headquartered in Massachusetts – Life Science Cares, MassBio, MassBioEd and the MLSC — Project Onramp matches undergraduate students with paid summer entry-level internships, which often lead to full-time employment.
One such student, Tsungai Jackson, participated in Project Onramp during the program’s inaugural year in 2019. With the assistance from Project Onramp, Tsungai was able to secure a position as a Discovery Chemistry Intern with Kaleido Bioscience. Tsungai graduated in 2021 from UMass Amherst with a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She has secured a position with Pfizer and was recognized as a Pfizer Breakthrough Fellow.
In February 2021, Project Onramp announced its expansion to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where it will continue its mission of connecting economically disadvantaged college students to paid internships.
The MLSC awarded 27 grants totaling $3.4 million through the MLSC’s STEM Equipment and Professional Development Grant Program, preparing students for life sciences careers by enabling schools to purchase lab equipment, materials, supplies, and technology, as well as provide teacher professional development that supports implementation of advanced curricula and standards alignment. The awards will support new and expanded curricula at 100 schools, serving more than 38,200 students, and providing more than 730 teachers with professional development.
These funds will prepare students for life sciences careers by enabling schools to purchase lab equipment, materials, supplies, and technology, as well as provide teacher professional development that supports implementation of advanced curricula and standards alignment. Applicants were required to be either a vocational-technical high school; a public middle school or high school with at least 25 percent of its student body classified by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as “economically disadvantaged”; a public middle school or high school in a Gateway City; or non-profit curriculum provider delivering STEM curriculum and professional development to schools that meet any of the above-stated criteria.
Since 2012, the MLSC has...
A first-time MLSC grant recipient, Leominster Public Schools was awarded $226,851 to implement the Project Lead The Way Biomedical Sciences curriculum at both of the city’s high schools. The grant will allow the district to offer professional development for twelve teachers and provide an estimated 380 students with an inquiry, project-based, and hands-on learning using such equipment as PCR machines, incubators, microcentrifuges, thermal cyclers, and DNA analysis kits.
Located in Danvers, the technical high school received nearly $110,000 to enable implementation of a biomanufacturing curriculum. The new equipment will allow them to develop and implement hands-on instruction on the maintenance and use of a bioreactor to control culture parameters for production, paralleling current manufacturing processes in industry, such as the production of proteins for medical treatment. Additionally, hundreds of middle school students will be invited to visit the lab and use the equipment as part of their biotechnology student outreach program with Lynn, Peabody, and Salem public schools.
Quincy Public Schools
With its initial grant from the MLSC, Quincy Public Schools completed the implementation of its high school engineering program and put state-of-the-art equipment and technology directly into the hands of all middle school students across the district. This year, the district will receive nearly $225,000 to implement, in partnership with Quincy College, an inquiry-based, hands-on, lab-focused curriculum for 2,200 students through investment in professional development for 250 teachers and capital equipment and technology upgrades for 21 classrooms across five middle schools.
The MLSC is proud to support the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation’s (MassBioEd) Life Sciences Apprenticeship program with a $50,000 grant. The program will support underrepresented groups in the life sciences industry, along with those who are unemployed and underemployed, providing them with the training and skills to afford them career opportunities within the sector.
The MLSC is bullish on our commitment that the next generation has the resources, education, and training to cultivate a talent pipeline that is unmatched by any other life sciences ecosystem. Our work can be seen across a number of our programs but also the deep partnerships we foster with fellow nonprofits and industry leaders like MassBioEd.
Since 2012, the MLSC has provided MassBioEd with over $1 million in grants to support biotechnology education at over 60 economically disadvantaged high schools and middle schools throughout Massachusetts. This funding has enabled schools to purchase state-of-the-art lab equipment and offer professional development opportunities for teachers. This investment includes recent partnerships with the schools districts of Boston, Lawrence, Salem, Chelsea, and Randolph, each of which received grants to implement MassBioEd curricula.
