Dancan Sandy's Oruko is a biopharmaceutical sciences student from Kenya. In June 2023, he participated in the NIIMBL eXperience, a program of the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals that was hosted at ACPHS. The eXperience is an exclusive, in-person, all-expenses-paid immersion program that offers underrepresented minority students’ real-world insight into biopharmaceutical industry careers through hands-on activities and direct interactions with industry professionals.
Oruko and 17 other students visited the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, the University at Albany’s RNA Institute, Biomed Innova, Next Advance, the Regenerative Research Foundation and Neural Stem Cell Institute, Curia Global, Takeda, Amgen and Cytiva. They also worked in ACPHS’ pharmacy practice skills laboratory, compounding laboratory and at the Stack Family Center for Biopharmaceutical Education and Training (CBET), and heard from the National Society of Black Engineers.
For Oruko, the eXperience helped him see how his passion for computer programming melded perfectly with his curiosity about pharmaceutical sciences.
Tell us about your interest in pharmaceutical sciences.
I always had this deep interest towards pharmaceuticals. This came about growing up in a community where I saw people develop resistance towards drugs, such as antimalarial drugs. Some things raised my curiosity, especially in a place where you weren't able to research them and find out what happens.
You planned to come to ACPHS in Fall 2020 but were delayed two years due to the COVID pandemic. How did you spend your time?
I started learning software development and programing. I took some courses online, used some videos on YouTube and just kept going.
I always looked at the medical field and thought there were more ways for it to interact with software. A key example is I thought if people can't see, there might be a way to integrate therapies with some sort of software to make them regain their sight.
Tell us about the NIIMBL eXperience. What prompted you to apply?
The NIIMBL eXperience is a one-week experience, an in-depth exploration of the journey from the R&D of drug development all the way to someone being able to consume the drug. And that's exactly the journey which I was looking to explore.
The NIIMBL eXperience includes visits to biopharmaceutical companies throughout the Capital Region and beyond. What was your first visit like?
We went to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. I was astonished by several things. One was the very concept of nanotechnology in which they're using nanoparticles to make nanomedicine -- nano is this concept of really tiny things. We were placed in the lab and we experienced making nanoparticles firsthand.
What really excited me is we were taken to this huge, huge lab with green lights. There were several companies which had set up camp there, including IBM. I was like, we are going through the journey of biopharmaceuticals. What does IBM have to do with this antigen? Then I started asking questions. I came to understand that these companies are interested in making chips, which are really tiny things. You have chips almost in every machine that you use on a daily basis -- on your phones, for instance. So now integrating this into the pharmaceutical world is what this company is very interested in.
This was when I realized, my interests are actually related. And you can use skills from this side (software) and skills from this other the side (pharmaceuticals) to make something that is actually greater.
So every place that I went afterward, I was asking questions: What about the software? How do we use that? How do we see that?
What were some things that stood out on your other trips?
At Biomed Innova, the president took us through the journey of developing therapies from the initial stage all the way to the end and explained every step of it, including the business side of pharmaceuticals. An associate took us through a story of making technology to assist nurses to administer intravenous injections. Each one of them was showing us the innovative side of things; it's not all about sitting in the lab and finding out, this is the action of this drug.
Another place was the Neural Stem Cell Institute, where some regenerative therapies are developed. It's almost what I always had in mind: if you lose your vision, they go into the stem cells and try to regenerate them. I was asking the scientist: this seems like something that you really need to get a lot of data on. He pulled up this whole program he had written and said, after we observe the cells under the microscope, we input them into the software and extract data from them. Because if you're analyzing the effect of something, you need numbers.
You told us that NIIMBL changed your outlook on your studies. How?
Coming into ACPHS, I expected that it would be all about drugs and learning the molecular foundations of drugs. I didn't know what I was going to do with my prior learning about programming. Experiencing the direct interaction of those two fields gave me the view of using my skills to innovate.
What kind of student would benefit from the NIIMBL eXperience?
The NIIMBL eXperience provides a very wide perspective, it's a very big program. Literally anyone who is really passionate about science, medical or non-medical, even if it's computing, even if it's physics, I believe they'll really benefit from it because it offers a really full journey.
ACPHS will host the NIIMBL eXperience again in June 2024. Applications will be accepted through March 1, 2024.