Building a CSO or Incubator: Strategies for Success

Over the past fifteen years, community college biotech programs have been experimenting with strategies to expand work-based learning opportunities for their students.  Pasadena City College and St. Louis Community College created incubators.  College-run incubators provide space and services to start-up companies in exchange for internships. Other colleges established internship opportunities by developing contract service labs (CSOs).  College-run CSOs hire students to work in the lab and either provide a variety of laboratory services (InnovaBIO at Salt Lake Community College and InnovaBio-MD at Hagerstown Community College) or they offer specific kinds of services like monoclonal antibody production (Kapíolani Community College) or media preparation (BioScope, BABEC). This report presents the history of some of the college-run biotech incubators and CSOs, describes how the Bioscience Collaborative Educational Learning Laboratory (B-CELL) at Bluegrass Community College and the Austin Community College Bioincubator began, and shares best practices that can help other colleges successfully develop these types of organizations.