Thursday, May 26, 2011

Biogen gives $275,000 to youth, student organizations

By James M. Connolly

The Biogen Idec Foundation, established by Biogen Idec Inc., today said that it has donated $275,000 in transformational grants to organizations in Greater Boston and North Carolina to support science education.

The foundation said that 2,700 students in the two regions will benefit from the grants, which are intended to help develop effective science teachers and to encourage young people to pursue science-related careers.

Weston-based Biogen Idec (Nasdaq BIIB) has a manufacturing center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., in addition to its Boston-area headquarters.

The foundation awarded grants to the following organizations:

    * East End House in Cambridge ($100,000) to expand its GENASAS (Generating and Evaluating New Adventures in Science After School) program. The grant will help to nearly double the size of the middle-school program and begin to develop high school and career readiness programs by funding participation by 125 students from Cambridge public schools.
    * Science Club for Girls in Cambridge ($50,000) to pilot the “From A to Zebrafish” program. Approximately 70 middle and high school girls will learn about zebrafish as a tool to understand biology and human disease.
    * Contemporary Science Center in Research Triangle Park ($50,000) for planning and development of an innovative public science technology engineering and mathematics school that will model and scale to diverse parts of North Carolina new ways to educate, using the entrepreneurism, talent and resources of the Research Triangle.
    * Boston University School of Medicine’s CityLab ($50,000) to connect a select group of teachers and 18 students from Bertie County, N.C., with 80 Greater Boston area students through the school’s 2011 SummerLab program and to continue the partnership during the academic year virtually through monthly lab challenges. The grant doubles one awarded by the foundation last year.
    * North Carolina New Schools Project ($25,000) for its Modeling Biology Instruction program, an intensive 10-day summer program in which teachers will learn new, more-effective methods of teaching biology. Twenty teachers reaching approximately 2,000 students will be offered the opportunity to attend the program.

The foundation reported that it has awarded $11 million in grants to science education and community-based programs in Biogen Idec’s U.S. operating areas since its incorporation in 2003.

Founded in 1978, Biogen Idec says it is the world’s oldest independent biotechnology company. It focuses on multiple sclerosis therapies. Last week, it was reported that an oral drug candidate developed by Biogen and intended to improve walking ability in patients with multiple sclerosis will likely get marketing approval in Europe.