By Vickie Cheng, New America Media
Elsa Eder stands in her lab coat, preparing to inject genes from one cell into another. Biotechnology isn’t something the 40-year-old former journalist ever expected to be studying, but when she lost her job with a local media outlet at the height of the Great Recession she was suddenly forced to make a dramatic career change.
She eventually came across City College of San Francisco’s Bridge to Biotech program, which works to expand access for the city’s low-income and minority residents to this rapidly growing sector. With no background in science, Eder credits the program’s counselors for helping her get past her own reservations about being qualified.
CCSF’s Bridge to Biotech program began 10 years ago, one of the first such programs in the country. It aims to give people like Eder a chance to break into one of the Bay Area’s – and the nation’s – fastest growing industries. There are more than 250,000 California residents employed in the biotech field. The San Francisco Bay Area represents the largest cluster of such jobs, with close to 900 companies employing 30 percent of the state’s biomedical workforce.
But for low-income and minority communities, access to these positions remains low.
Read the complete story at New America Media.
Also, read previous coverage about the Bridge to Biotech program by the San Francisco Public Press.