Massachusetts is putting new funding behind efforts to improve science, technology, engineering and math education in the commonwealth. Governor Baker and the Massachusetts Life Science Center (MLSC) will award $39 million in capital financing for research centers and life sciences training facilities at colleges, universities, middle schools and high schools across Massachusetts.
The program funds high-potential economic development projects by nonprofit entities that make significant contributions to the state’s life sciences ecosystem. To date, the MLSC has awarded or committed more than $405 million to support capital projects across the state.
So far, $35 million of the total funding has been awarded through the competitive capital program.
Projects include local expansion of STEM educational programs; upgrades to laboratory and research equipment in educational institutions, as well as the creation of totally new programs. Harvard Medical School, which has been awarded over $4 million, will partner with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish a new research and education program in regulatory science and precision medicine, focusing on overcoming the most difficult steps in drug development, to address unmet medical needs at lower cost.
Boston’s Institute for Protein Innovation, which was awarded $5 million, will also build and operate an open-source antibody discovery platform focused on protein therapies, with the long-term goal of developing antibodies targeting the entire human extracellular proteome.
The other $4 million in funding will go to 49 recipients across Massachusetts, through the MLSC’s STEM Equipment and Supply Grant Program. For the first time, MLSC is pairing capital STEM equipment grants with resources for teacher professional development, to train educators on new STEM equipment. The MLSC is awarding a total of $400,000 in teacher professional development grants to the capital grant recipients.
