Living up to the needs of life sciences

The training of science professionals and their retention in the UK is of growing concern – here Professor Bill Gilmore tells us how one university got to grips with the life science industry

A new report showing the North West of England's top 10 employment growth sectors has named the life sciences as the region's biggest jobs provider. My own institution, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), commissioned the study called The Changing Professions in the North West of England, which reveals the life sciences industries employed 455,600 staff last year accounting for 13.4% of jobs in the region.

The life science industries sector comprises biotechnology and wider health service activities delivered by organisations such as the NHS. The biotechnology sector is concerned with the development and manufacture of therapeutic and diagnostic drugs, as well as delivering these drugs. Life Sciences, and the employment it brings, is critical to the North West of England – for example, the region boasts 230 biomedical companies, including six multinational pharmaceutical firms. In fact, the North West is the largest producer of pharmaceutical organisations in the United Kingdom.

To maintain this growth, Manchester Enterprises, the Economics Development Agency for Greater Manchester, has pinpointed the need for closer collaboration with the NHS – both to help it recruit new staff and to address the skills issues of its existing workforce – and with the Higher Education sector to ensure that its provision is geared to current needs. In its 2007 skills analysis and priorities report, it also outlined the shortage of dental nurses, medical secretaries and hospital porters as areas to address.

The Changing Professions in the North West of England report details how MMU is already making a direct contribution to the regional economy through its life sciences provision. 74% of the 5,000 science and engineering students trained by MMU every year stay to work and live in the North West. Alongside these students entering the workforce, 80% of the MMU's trained health professionals, including nurses, health visitors and dental technicians, go on
to enter this sector at all levels – in hospitals and community health – in the North West.

But what of the history – and how does this relate to today’s employment picture? The North West of England is the cradle of the industrial revolution. In 1759, James Brindley began surveying for the construction of a canal to transport coal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s mines in Worsley to Manchester. Thus began a revolution that, still today, has profound effects on the daily lives of ordinary people, no more so than in the region that spawned its birth and this is particularly true in the life sciences. The size of the region’s employers now ranges from large concerns - the NHS and multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Astra Zeneca - to smaller independent companies.

Universities in the North West are amongst the best in the world and are exceptionally well placed to meet the needs and challenges of these industries. MMU, for one, plays a key role in providing education to the workforce, research and consultancy and, in wealth creation. For example, our School of Biology, Chemistry and Health Science offers full time degrees in chemistry, biology, biomedical science and dental technology which directly contribute to the local knowledge-based economy by providing a steady stream of graduates. Importantly, we are also a major provider of part-time undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the life sciences. Our part-time honours degrees in Applied Chemistry, Applied Biomedical Science and Applied Biology provide opportunities to study the life sciences from molecules to whole organisms, whilst programmes in Clinical Physiology, Biomedical Science and Dental Technology produce graduates who become registered practitioners in healthcare science.

We also have an extensive portfolio of part-time Masters’ degrees in Biology and Biomedical Science that provide advanced education and training opportunities for employees of the life science industries. The School will introduce an MSc in Clinical Physiology in September, and we plan to extend our taught Masters provision by introducing an MSc in Applied Biomedical Science that will lead to Health Professions Council Registration for science graduates.

A feature of all of these courses, and others, is that wherever possible there is an element of collaboration with employers. For example, a large proportion of the MSc in Biomedical Science is taught by practicing scientists from the NHS or from the pharmaceutical companies situated close to the University, while the MSc in Conservation Biology contains a module that is taught entirely by colleagues from Chester Zoo. We also highly value the support of employers and the professional and statutory bodies in our taught course provision and have extensive links with the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Biomedical Science and NHS North West and other key sector institutions.

We are a major provider of continuing professional development (CPD) activities which range from short specialist courses run at the request of employers or professional bodies to formal taught programmes at Masters and Doctoral level. The latter include part-time PhDs and a range of Professional Doctorates. It is possible for students employed in the life sciences sector to take all or part of these qualifications.

MMU is also active in research and consultancy for the sector. The Biological Sciences department, for example, has undertaken consultancy projects with Scent Technologies, Smith & Nephew Pharmaceuticals and Micap. Micap has enlisted MMU's knowledge of essential oils to tackle deadly hospital infections such as MRSA. The superbug is known for its resistance to traditional antibiotics so University microbiologists have teamed up with the Wigan-based firm to explore another way to kill the deadly organisms – by harnessing the natural antibacterial properties of plant-derived essential oils and incorporating them into healthcare products. Dr Valerie Edwards-Jones, a reader in medical microbiology in MMU's Research Institute for Health and Social Change, is working with Micap to build these oils into devices such as urinary catheters, wound dressings and creams. They have discovered that encapsulating the volatile oil particles in dead yeast cells – creating a shell – controls the speed of their release which makes them safer to use.

MMU’s biomedical science research is organised and focused in the Institute for Biomedical Research into Human Movement and Health. This was formed around a group of highly successful biomedical science researchers who achieved the highest possible grade of 5* in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. We have well established collaborations with local hospitals, universities and healthcare industry. One example of such a collaborative effort is a project to examine the accuracy of diagnosis of malaria in third world countries which has been funded by the World Health Organisation in conjunction with the National External Quality Assurance Scheme in Haematology (UKNEQAS). The project is led by myself, Dr Len Seal and Visiting Professor Keith Hyde, who is Director of the UKNEQAS and Consultant Clinical Scientist at Manchester Royal Infirmary. It involves scientists from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UKNEQAS in Watford, and Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Interestingly, despite the life science industries currently being the biggest provider of employment in the North West, it has actually fallen behind financial and professional services and Education as the third fastest growing over the past decade. It will be interesting to see what the next ten years brings for the sector. 

By Professor Bill Gilmore. Bill is head of the School of Biology, Chemistry and Health Science at Manchester Metropolitan University