The Cullen College of Engineering hosted 15 college freshman and sophomores from nine states, representing 14 different community and four-year colleges and universities, at UH’s National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) eXperience program earlier this summer.
The NIIMBL eXperience is a one-week, all-expense paid learning program for early-college students designed to educate and encourage students toward promising careers in biomanufacturing while promoting workforce development for related industries.
This year’s NIIMBL eXperience at UH was funded with a grant from NIIMBL, with Professor Fatima Merchant serving as Principal Investigator and Professor Albert Flavier as Senior Personnel.
Participating students visited five biomanufacturing companies in Houston, where students engaged with industry professionals and gained insight into their varied roles and career trajectories; these included Cell Therapy Manufacturing Center-Resilience, Neurogene, Hope Biosciences, Immatics, and Lonza Houston, all of which are involved in the development and manufacturing of cell and gene therapy products for the treatment of assorted cancers, neurological, autoimmune, and genetic disorders.
Participants also toured the Texas Medical Center, where many hospitals serve as pivotal research and clinical trial centers for testing investigational drugs, as well as the TMC Innovation Center, which houses numerous pioneering medical startups. Merchant noted “we are grateful to our industry partners for graciously hosting students and sharing their valuable insights on careers in biomanufacturing.”
In addition to these uniquely-Houston experiences, students received expert guidance in professional soft skills such as resume crafting, personal brand enhancement, and enhancing their interview and networking skills. Cullen Assistant Professor Jerrod Henderson and professor and Undergraduate Program Director Patrick Cirino spoke to the group about their own respective career paths, from academic and mentorship experiences to ongoing university research.
UH partnered with San Jacinto College to offer hands-on biomanufacturing training. In the lab, students learned bioreactor operation, chromatography, cell culture, and sterile techniques. They practiced tube welding and sealing, cleanroom gowning, contamination control, and biosafety cabinet procedures, and observed unidirectional airflow using smoke studies. They also received hands-on training on new CliniMACS Plus and CliniMACS Prodigy instrumentation for cell sorting, which they were “excited to see being used in the companies they visited later in the week,” said Flavier.
In 2025, the number of applicants to the NIIMBL eXperience at UH doubled over 2024; the 15 participants were chosen from a pool of 84 initial applicants.
Flavier added that this year, “UH was clearly very effective and successful in advertising the workforce program and in promoting biomanufacturing as a science and career path to a broad audience of students.”
More information about the NIIMBL eXperience can be found at https://www.et.uh.edu/niimbl-experience and https://www.niimbl.org/workforce/niimbl-experience/.
NIIMBL eXperience @ UH was developed under a Project Award Agreement from the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) and financial assistance award 70NANB21H086 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.