Bioscience lab gets $160K machine as Holland College program expands

The bioscience technology program at Holland College is getting ready to expand this fall, and a new piece of equipment will help.

The BioTek Cytation 5 combination plate reader and imaging system was purchased with a $146,000 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

"The importance in our program is to keep the students current with technology. So in a field like bioscience technology that's a challenging order," said Mike Gibson, an instructor in the program.

"So we use applications for funding to constantly bring new equipment, current equipment, into the lab so our students are getting trained on what's actually happening now in the workplace."

Growing sector

Gibson says the program has been growing since it started 15 years ago, as the bioscience sector on P.E.I. has also grown.

The Holland College program will expand again this fall.

"We'll be doubling the size of our second-year program by bringing in university students," Gibson said.

"We're integrated into a university degree and third-year students in that degree spend one year here at the college, doing the hands-on practical work that we do here at the college."

Gibson says the lab needed more equipment to help with the expansion.

"We certainly had some key components that we needed to double up our capacity," Gibson said. 

"So that when we have twice as many students here, we can maintain that student-to-equipment ratio."

Gibson said he only knows of one private lab on P.E.I. that also has the BioTek Cytation 5 system.

"It is a very new piece of equipment and it's combining plate reading capabilities with microscopic observation abilities as well, which really gives us some capabilities we didn't have before," Gibson said.

"The students are quite often looking at cancer cell lines looking at possible natural extracts that might have an impact on cancer behaviour, and this instrument is really custom-designed for doing both the quantitative and qualitative analysis that goes along with that work."

'Very exciting'

Third-year UPEI student Thong Ho is the first to complete a project using the new equipment.

"I was really excited just to see how it is capable to do a thing like capture your image and have different wavelengths to see the cell line," Ho said.

Ho said he appreciates the opportunity to work with a state of the art piece of equipment, as he prepares for a future in the bioscience industry.

"I want to work in the industry here on P.E.I. because I want to contribute," Ho said.

"To experience more of the biotech field here, because this is a growing field on P.E.I."

Enhance student research

Gibson said it was exciting to see Thong put the new system into action.

"It was the first time we actually were using it, and a student was attempting a very ambitious project of trying to transform a cancer cell line," Gibson said.

"It worked beautifully, and the instrument showed just how it's going to enhance student research projects."

Gibson said the college works very closely with the bioscience industry on P.E.I.

"They're constantly guiding us as to what kind of investments they would like to see us make," Gibson said. 

"They're certainly supportive of any initiatives that we take to keep ourselves current and training the students on the skills that they need."

Gibson said the bioscience program is set to take between 10 and 15 more students from UPEI starting in September 2020.

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