The Northwestern Predoctoral Biotechnology Training Program is an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental program that provides select graduate students with unique research, training, and professional development opportunities that complement those available through individual graduate programs, research labs, and campus organizations. It promotes interdisciplinary education in biotechnology, interactions among faculty and students with interests in biotechnology, and provides a substantial exposure of students to industrial biotechnology research and career opportunities. Students trained in this program are prepared to enter the biotechnology industry or pursue biotechnology research in settings including academia and government. The overall goals of the Northwestern Predoctoral Biotechnology Training Program are to:
Trainees may participate in BTP activities through one of two modes: National Institutes of Health-funded Trainees and Biotechnology Cluster Members. Training goals, activities, and opportunities are essentially the same for both types of participation, but there are some differences related to eligibility, type/duration of support, and requirements. Throughout this website, we use the collective term “trainees” to describe both modes of participation.
Graduate students from one of our six participating graduate programs (Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Driskill Graduate Program, Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences (IBiS) and Materials Science) who are U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents may apply for these positions before beginning their second year of graduate training.
This mode of participation is supported by The Graduate School (TGS) and is open to all graduate students at Northwestern University; there are no restrictions by citizenship/residency, graduate program, or year of training.
BTP provides unique research, training, and professional development opportunities that complement those available through individual graduate programs, research labs, and campus organizations.
Industrial internships offer trainees the opportunity to obtain a first-hand experience of applied biotechnology research in a selected industrial laboratory. Biotechnology companies both locally and across the globe can offer such opportunities to trainees. Internships typically last 3-6 months, and the selection, timing and duration of these internships is guided by input from research mentors and BTP directors and is informed by interactions with past trainees.
This signature annual event provides intensive and hands-on training in cutting-edge biotechnology topics and techniques as well as networking with domain experts. The practicum is organized primarily by trainees, including the selection of each year’s distinct topic and invitation of speakers, with support provided by BTP leadership and staff.
This annual event provides an opportunity for students to have increased exposure to the biotechnology industry. Trainees will assist in organizing the event, which is run in collaboration with the Northwestern Masters of Biotechnology Program.
Research seminars on the various aspects of biotechnology are a key graduate training experience, especially in a field as interdisciplinary as biotechnology, and this series includes a balance of speakers from academia, industry, and other sectors. Seminars are held weekly in spring and approximately monthly in fall and winter, with the selection and hosting of speakers guided by trainee input.
View Upcoming and Past Seminars
Monthly Research in Progress meetings provide an opportunity for trainees to gain experience presenting their research to a diverse audience, receive feedback and advice on ongoing research challenges, learn about issue of rigor and reproducibility and how they are managed in diverse contexts, and build a collaborative of cohort of trainees drawn from diverse labs and graduate programs.
This event provides opportunities for trainees to interact with faculty and trainee peers from across the biotechnology community at Northwestern, to embrace and showcase the breadth of biotechnology research conducted across the university, and to network with former BTP trainees and alumni.
In order to provide in-depth exposure to companies of general interests, BTP organizes period site visits (in person to local companies, or virtually to any company). These trips provide opportunities for trainees to view manufacturing facilities up close, and to network with industrial colleagues representing a diversity of business functions, career stages, and professional paths.
The Biotechnology Training Program is committed to promoting excellence in graduate education and research. We believe that having different voices at the table means hearing different points of view, which makes our program stronger. As an essential part of our mission, we strive to create an environment that values all aspects of diversity including race or ethnicity, religion, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, nationality or place of origin, disability, neurodiversity, and diverse life experiences. We believe in providing access and opportunities equitably to all members of the community and valuing all voices. BTP leadership, faculty, and trainees take actions that promote recruitment, inclusion and retention. BTP is committed to taking anti-racist actions within our program, and to helping our trainees and preceptors to take such actions in general. We commit to continual self-evaluation, striving for improvement, and collaborating with our affiliated graduate programs, labs, and departments and Northwestern to pursue these goals.
