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The state’s policymakers have pinned high hopes on developing the bioscience industry as an engine for economic growth, and KU officials say they’re doing their part to get the pistons firing.

“If you stand still in a race, you’re not going to win,” said Charles Decedue, Higuchi Biosciences Center’s executive director.

Kansas University Continuing Education has partnered with the Higuchi Center on a three-year, $600,000 National Science Foundation Partnerships For Innovation grant aimed at workforce development. The grant supports development and teaching of targeted courses for those working in the bioscience and pharmaceutical industries in Kansas and Missouri.

State lawmakers in 2004 passed the Kansas Economic Growth Act, which aims to jumpstart the state’s biotechnology industry.

The program this fall started offering short courses. Classes range in size, from about eight students to 60. They are taught by KU faculty or qualified industry experts.

Special to the Journal-World

Victor Gruebler, left, and Jerreme Jackson, both employees of Hill’s Pet Nutrition in Topeka, attended an Advanced Mammalian Cell Culture class offered by Kansas University earlier this month.

Thomas Sack, director of the chemical sciences division at Midwest Research Institute, said traditionally there haven’t been many opportunities for working scientists to advance their skills, short of out-of-town training or going back to college.

“I think it’s a great thing,” Sack said of the new program.

Upcoming courses include “EPA,” which updates lab workers on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations and hazard concerns. Another course is “FDA and Animal Handling,” which focuses on the Food and Drug Administration’s practices for handling animals in drug-testing facilities.

Participants are surveyed after taking the classes to gauge their usefulness.

Continuing Education Program Manager Karen Krumme said she meets with industry professionals regularly to determine their needs to target course offerings.

• More on developing life-science research in Kansas

“We are educating the already educated,” she said. “We are updating them with skills that are new. It’s exciting, and it’s challenging to be able to provide them with the courses that they need.”

Continuing Education also focuses on general public education and on stimulating children’s interests in science.

Krumme said she expects the workforce development programs to grow exponentially.

For now, grant funds help underwrite the courses, Decedue said. But that is expected to decrease as the program becomes better established.

JoAnn Smith, vice provost for University Outreach and dean of Continuing Education, said she expects the program will continue beyond the three-year grant period.

“What we’re seeing is momentum is picking up now, after this slow, deliberate start,” she said.