2025-2026 Cohort Image
Welcome to

NIH Protein Biotechnology Training Program

Mission 

Expand the research and research-related workforce by helping trainees attain essential experiences, skills, and knowledge, particularly in protein research and creation of biotechnology, and by promoting research-informed graduate education and supportive research ecosystems. This mission and our specific objectives are shaped by:

Upcoming

  1. Recommendations from Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS, 2018),
  2. Overarching NIGMS’s T32 objectives,
  3. Experience training over 120 doctoral graduates since our founding in 1989.

Why Protein Biotechnology? 

  • Our protein research emphasis draws on WSU’s strengths and is broad enough to build an umbrella coalition with five graduate programs and four colleges (figure below), however, it is also sufficiently constrained to motivate participant interactions that have yielded transdisciplinary research papers and intellectual property.
  • Trainees develop skills by completing mentored, project-based learning opportunities in courses, monthly professional development meetings, annual symposia, and individualized biotech internships, with an emphasis on biotechnology and the biotech industry. The technical, operational, and professional skills that are developed are applicable to a wide range of research and research-related biomedical careers.
  • Trainee positions are supported by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, and contributions by Washington State University.
Five WSU graduate programs united by the Biotech Training Program
Five WSU graduate programs united by the Biotech Training Program

News

WSU graduate Shannon Allen Whiles to pursue innovative IBD treatments

While graduate programs tend to skew toward readying students for careers in academia, the NIH Protein Biotechnology Training Program – of which she served stints in its leadership as secretary and president – has a focus on preparing, training, and networking for careers in industry.

Program Trainee Updates

Albina Makio Post Image

Albina Makio – Nicola Lab

Recipient of the Dr. James and Mrs. Lillian Kraft Graduate Student Fellowship

Jasson Makkar Post Image

Jasson Makkar -Driskell Lab

Defended Fall 2025

If you are a current trainee or faculty trainer and want to highlight a trainee’s accomplishment, please fill out the NIH Protein Biotechnology Accomplishment Survey