(Laurie Lajoie, Laurence Guglielmi)
Education is included in our programme as a continuum, from the early steps in higher education to the first job, and throughout the professional life.
Master and PhD level training
Starting from the academic year 2020 two cursus are being set up:
The MAbInnovation Master programme
At Master level, we are committed to offer to the Science, Medicine and Pharmaceutical Science students of the Universities of Tours and Montpellier and engineers of the IMT Group an integrated training programme, called “MAbInnovation” cursus. It combines theoretical courses with practical internships (1st and 2nd year) in relation with therapeutic antibodies, either in MabImprove research teams or in biopharmaceutical companies, depending on the student’s professional project.
The programme is based on the existing training offer within the IMT cursus and five Master mentions (Life Sciences in Tours, Drug Sciences in Montpellier, Agrosciences in Montpellier, and Biology-Health both in Tours and in Montpellier) representative of the diversity of fields and applications encompassed by mAbs. The existing courses will be labelled by the industrial players, enabling the identification of blocks of skills required for the employability of students at the end of their Master’s degree.
The programme also focuses on the excellence of basic research allowing the training of students choosing an academic career in research, and should also increase the professionalisation and employability of those interested in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Students engaged in the MAbInnovation programme will have the opportunity to attend the Annual Industrial Symposium to present their work during the poster session, meet researchers from industry.
A highly specialised teaching programme on therapeutic antibodies is integrated in the Life Sciences mention in Tours (Master of Infectious Diseases, Immunology, Vaccinology and Biomedicine (I2VB) including therapeutic antibodies among the three options proposed). This programme is available to students with a matching career plan, and we will further increase the training possibilities to mirror the fact that therapeutic antibodies now deeply penetrate many biological disciplines and medical specialties.
The MabBoost PhD programme
The aim of this programme is towfold:
– help the future insertion of people who just obtained their PhD in the biopharmaceutical industry.
– render careers in industrial R&D more attractive by convincing PhD students that researchers in industry can be as fulfilled as in the academic sector, and that they have to develop cutting-edge research, submitted to a very high level of scientific competition.
The MabBoost training programme, organised by MAbImprove pedagogical leaders in connection with MabDesign, is intended for the students of the doctoral schools of Tours and Montpellier (CBS2). It corresponds to 30 doctoral credits (about 60hr), split into three yearly independent (not sequential) units, highly specialised on therapeutic antibodies research, development and innovation. Trainers will come from the biopharmaceutical industry and will present real-life case studies to explain the different steps of antibody R&D. Students will be presented with a research problem and will have to work in groups to present and discuss their propositions, while the other groups and the trainer will challenge them.
More details on the training: click here
Creation of a training program ranging from Level IV to Level I
In addition to training at masters and then doctoral level the creation of a complete chain of vocational-type training is expected. Moreover, since 1998 a convention has existed between the Université François-Rabelais and the Groupe IMT (Expert training institute for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and biotechnology industries).
This convention has among other things, created an authentic training program ranging from technician level (Level IV) to Masters level (Level I) in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Teacher exchanges and availability of the IMT technical plateau unique in France enable the training and/or provision of semi-industrial or industrial equipment for research and development in “galenic chemicals” for doctoral students.
Similarly for biotechnology training courses, LabEx participates in the creation of Level IV to Level I training courses, using IMT know-how to build a training program similar to existing “galenic chemical” productions in the pharmaceutical industry. Training courses for technicians, senior technicians, specialized technicians, professional Bachelor’s degree and Masters in industrial pharmaceutical-biotechnology and engineering and quality control careers are to be developed with input from the IMT.
This training project has led the PRES (Regional higher education center) Centre Val de Loire Université, now called COMUE Leonard de Vinci, to the creation, as part of “Investments for the Future” and in the call for projects “invest in professional training programs” of the first French Institute of biodrugs and cosmetics BIO3 Institute.
The Bio3 Institute will accordingly meet both main objectives of this program: to update and extend professional training programs by the development of an innovative technical plateau in France and to develop housing solutions tailored to the needs of young people who are committed to professional training programs.
The Bio3 Institute is in line with the COMUE in order to reinforce the MAbImprove Laboratoire d’ Excellence training dimension.