A key component of the BTP is the 1 - 3 month mandatory externship.  Externship training can occur at anytime during the first or second year. Externships have been hosted by a wide range of companies in the US, England, Holland and Sweden (see below). Companies contribute in whole or part to externship costs with further support from the BTP.  Please refer to the BTP Student Handbook for details. 

    Externship planning is initiated by BTP students with David Chen or Tim Redden.  David also directs translational efforts in UVa's School of Medicine and UVa's Coulter Project.  Tim is Assoc Dean for Development and VP of UVEF.

 

    Upon completing your externship please complete the evaluation form.  We also wish to hear from your company supervisor.  Forms for both are available.

    Below are past hosting companies, names of BTP student and training year.  The company list continues to grow as BTP students find companies that match their interests. 

Amersham Biosciences (now part of GE Healthcare)
Uppsala, Sweden
Antonio Ubiera established a method for measuring protein uptake on various chromatographic media ('02).

Amgen, Inc.
Seattle, WA
Matthew Stark gained experience into the inner workings of discovery research in the Department of Inflammation ('04).

ATCC
Manassas, VA
Daniel Leslie worked on a microfluidic proximal antibody ligation method for ‘bar coding’ antibodies with specific nucleic acid tags.  Annika Hedin.

Becton Dickinson and Company Diagnostic Systems
Sparks, MD
Lorin Henrich set up a multiplex PCR assay to be used in quality control of BD's 'Phoenix' instrument ('03).

Biogen Idec
Boston, MA
Jacob Jordan studied how structural alteration can improve protein stability ('07).

BioRad
Ernie Perez Almodovar is studying chromatographic materials (09).

Biosite
San Diego, CA
Kristina Little ('08) analyzed clinical trials and created a biophysical model for the action of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, a biomarker for acute kidney injury.

Entelos, Inc.
Foster City, CA
Rooshin Dalal worked with members of the Metabolism team on a top-down computational project to identify and model critical metabolic pathways involved in obesity ('05).

Genentech
San Francisco, CA
Michael Smith trained in Mary Gerritsen's cardiovascular research lab ('01).
Aaron Bailey externed in a mass spec group (’07).
Michael Stadnisky will extern at Genetech.

Geosyntec Consultants
Columbia, MD
Meng Wang gained further experience in her thesis area of bioremediation (’07).

Glaxo Smith Kline
Matthew Oberhardt analyzed microarray data sets to identify genes tha whose expression changes in ageing.

Human Genome Sciences
Rockville, MD
Eric Park was involved with instrument setup for study of cancer drug candidates in the Preclinical Development Department ('01).

Institute for Genomic Research (now part of J. Craig Venter Institute)
Rockville, MD
Michael Smoot developed 'MUMmer', a sequence alignment tool for large genetic sequences and utilized MUMmer to compare bacterial DNA from one of the anthrax victims with the Bacillus anthracis genome sequence ('01).

Luna Inovations (contact Michael Danilich)
Charlottesville, VA
Caren Petrie studied bond lifetimes for applications in controlled drug delivery (’07).

Medlmmune Inc.
Gaithersburg, MD
Jace Fogle studied the utility of ion-exchange purification of a new drug for Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma ('04).  Sarah Johnson recently externed in the formulation department and compared results of their high throughput screenin method (‘08-’09).

Merck & Co. Inc.
Elkton, VA
Tom Gervais was involved with manufacturing scaleup of the anti-fungal drug CANCIDAS during his externship ('01).

Merck Research Labs
West Point, PA
Tara Tibbs gained experience in the application of polysaccharide modification to vaccine development ('01).

Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research
Cambridge, MA
Alex Baras helped develop computational methods to analyze SNP arrays ('06).  Erwin Gianchandani worked in NIBR's Developmental and Molecular Pathways Division on set enrichment analysis in microarray data sets ('07).

Orchid Cellmark
Germantown, MD
Katie Horsman developed a PCR-based forensic assay.  She then wrote the standard operating procedure and quality control documentation  ('04).

Pfizer Inc. Global Biologics
St. Louis, MO
Tim Pabst evaluated the binding and elution behavior fo PEGylated protein on anion exchange columns ('06).

Phillips Research Europe
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Brian Schmidt gained experience in the biochemistry and drug delivery potential of microbubbles ('06).

Protein Solutions Inc. (now apparently part of Wyatt Technology Corp, Santa Barbara CA)
Charlottesville, VA (former)
Larry Lanning worked on the business side of this dynamic light scattering company ('00 - '01).

ReNeuron
Surrey, England
Rosiland Mott designed and implemented protocols to screen clonally derived cells for their potential as retinal progenitor cells ('04).

Stemgent
Cambridge, MA
Rebekah Neal learned about applications of stem cells at Stemgent (’08).

Tissue Genesis, Inc.
Honolulu, HI
Michelle Kofron worked on TGI's Bio-Optimization System for cell culture ('05).  Emily Cushnie ('06) and Alex Bailey ('08) participated in adult stem cell isolation procedures .

UVa Patent Foundation
Charlottesville, VA
Patrick Martin ('01 - '02) and Shannon Beck ('03) helped on licensing accounts.  This is no longer a training option, as per NIH oversight.