Bayer Foundation Awards $150,000 Grant to Nationally Recognized Bay Area Biotechnology School-to-Career Program
From U.S. Newswire Releases:
The Bayer Foundation tonight awarded Biotech Partners (formerly Berkeley Biotechnology Education Inc., or BBEI) a $150,000 grant, further demonstrating the foundation's commitment to education and workforce development and to ensure today's students are well- prepared to be tomorrow's leaders and innovators.
The Bayer Foundation grant will help Biotech Partners enhance the educational services it provides to local high school and community college students.
Biotech Partners is the Bay Area's only non-profit organization providing a comprehensive, hands-on, bioscience education and job training program for populations underrepresented in the sciences -- especially students of color (97 percent), young women (54 percent) and those from low-income households.
This grant reaffirms Bayer Corporation's commitment to this exemplary biotechnology school-to-career program the company established with the City of Berkeley 13 years ago.
"It is with great pride and pleasure that the Bayer Foundation awards this grant to a program that Bayer Corporation helped establish," said Yvonne Richardson, who presented the check on behalf of the Foundation.
Richardson is vice president, Project Management, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Hematology/Cardiology.
The gift was bestowed at Posters2006, Biotech Partners' annual event that showcases and celebrates the achievements of students from Berkeley High School and Oakland's Life Academy of Health and Bioscience at the conclusion of their first summer internships in the biotechnology industry.
Their internship supervisors were presented with Certificates of Appreciation.
During Posters2006, each student presented a poster depicting his or her summer internship experience at biotech companies including Bayer, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kaiser Permanente, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, the Alameda County Department of Health, EBMUD, Brookside Community Health Center, Libby Laboratories, Lawrence Hall of Science, Pets Unlimited Hospital and La Clinica Alta Vista.
Judging the posters for Best Poster, Most Creative Poster and Best Oral Presentation awards were Bayer's Richardson; Councilmember Moore; Julie Sinai, aide to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates; Dr. William A. Lester, UCB professor of chemistry and principal investigator, Chemical Sciences Division, LBNL; Karina Moreno, The Y&H Soda Foundation; Rogeair Purnell, The James Irvine Foundation; Alameda County's Board of Supervisors' President Carson and Superintendent of Schools Sheila Jordan; Dr. J. Mark Carter, Research Leader, USDA; David Manson, Executive Director of Berkeley Boosters; and Tammy Burns Bailey, a Biotech Partners graduate and board member, among others.
Biotech Partners also presented Outstanding Mentor Awards to Glenn Yamasaki of Bayer HealthCare and Gennady Borinshteyn of Libby Laboratories, for their longtime dedication to and participation in the program.
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