Daily Record

The Baltimore region hopes for a substantial economic return from two new biotechnology centers, the East Baltimore Biotechnology Park (adjacent to the Johns Hopkins Medical institutions) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore BioPark. The two centers are expected to attract an influx of federal money.

Established Program Adds World-Class Biomedical Research Center

To address Maryland's growing bioscience sector, the University of Maryland Baltimore recently broke ground for the construction of a world-class BioPark to be built on eight acres adjacent to its downtown Baltimore campus. Once completed, the BioPark will contain seven buildings and 800,000 square feet of office and lab space.

"This new BioPark will be primarily utilized to house private bioscience companies, as well as university faculty and research," says James Hughes, vice president of research and development at University of Maryland. "The biotech centers in San Francisco and Boston are both built around the universities; however, Maryland is unique in that our biotech community is based around the National Institutes of Health."

A unique aspect of the BioPark is that the residents of the neighborhood - Poppleton - were integrally involved with the development of the project. "There's not one part of this project where you can't see the fingerprints of the Poppleton community," says Hughes, adding that the BioPark will create 3,000 new jobs, primarily filled by Poppleton residents.

"The University of Baltimore did a study that concluded that the newly created jobs will be varied in that some will require a high school degree, some will require a college degree and others will require a master's degree," says Hughes. "The balance of jobs is great, and ideally, employees can further their education to obtain better and better jobs."

The BioPark also will be a great addition to the bachelor's of science program at University of Maryland with a biomedical science research track and an emphasis on biotechnology. Additionally, the medical school offers a biotechnology certificate program, which can be completed in one year.