Tennessee Programs Put Students on Biotech Path
Published Apr 07, 2002
TSU graduate student and high school teacher Missy Bunch is working to bring more students to the rapidly growing field of biotechnology.
Missy Bunch is passionate about biotechnology. As the biotechnology industry is booming nationwide – with at least 25 biotech companies in Middle Tennessee alone – it’s important that students have the opportunity to receive training in high school. And that’s where Bunch comes in.
Bunch, who has taught high school science at Martin Luther King Magnet School in Nashville, is currently on leave enrolled in a biological sciences master’s program at Tennessee State University. She initiated a molecular research program at MLK, and her students had four papers published in the Tennessee Junior Academy of Science Journal in 2001 and won awards at the Regional Science Fair at Vanderbilt University. Bunch is working with the Memphis Regional Chamber to help launch the program at three Memphis schools.
A similar course is in the planning stage for Cohn Adult High School to help students enter an associate’s degree program in biotechnology at Nashville State Technical Institute.
“Biotechnology is the basis for life-science research,” Bunch says. “There is a tremendous amount of jobs available and not all of them require advanced degrees. More employees and better-trained employees mean more financial gain to the individual, company, and the local and state economies.”
According to the 2000 census, 87,000 adults over 25 in Davidson County do not have a high school diploma, Bunch says. The Cohn program hopes to address this problem by providing a starting point for adults who want to get into the biotech field but do not have any practical experience.
Even if a student doesn’t choose research or medicine as a career, it will give them much needed information that will benefit everyday life decisions, Bunch says.
“They will be better prepared to understand the options available to them at a doctor’s appointment and can make decisions about buying genetically altered food products,” she says. “But the main reason for this course is that I just love it and wanted to do it.”
Yet the course has already had a career-paving impact on four of her MLK students, who are planning research or medicine careers. One of those students had never liked science, but taking the molecular-science course changed her mind. Now she plans to choose research as a career.
“I am thrilled about that,” Bunch says. “She is extremely intelligent and will contribute greatly in whatever field she chooses.”
Story by Nancy Humphrey
Photo by David Mudd
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