History of NBC2

The Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative (NBC2) is a National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education regional center that has been in existence since 2005. It began at Great Bay Community College in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Dr. Sonia Wallman as the Principal Investigator. Since 2009, the center has been housed at Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) in Blue Bell, PA. Currently Dr. Maggie Bryans, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Biotechnology at MCCC, serves as Principal Investigator and co-leads the Center with Dr. Linda Rehfuss, Co-Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Biotechnology at nearby Bucks County Community College. In addition to the Pennsylvania hub NBC2 has four additional strategically placed hubs in New York, North Carolina, Indiana, and California. A list of the colleges and Co-Principal Investigators that make up these area hubs can be found in the 'Principal Investigator' page. The focus of NBC2 has been and continues to be the creation of biomanufacturing curriculum to support the education and training of technicians for the biomanufacturing industry. Over the past ten years NBC2 has worked with industry subject matter experts to develop a suite of curricular materials including a biomanufacturing lab manual the Introduction to Biomanufacturing textbook, several process specific short lab manuals and a complete list of skill standards and competencies for biomanufacturing technicians. This material and much more is available to you through this website. 

NBC2 offers several professional development opportunities for college and high school faculty inculding BIOMAN conferences and Protein is Cash workshops providing faculty with learning modules that can be added to existing courses or programs. Over the years the center has expanded it's focus to include curricular material and hands-on experiences in the areas of biofuels, industrial biotechnology and stem cell technology.