EmpowerBio and FAES Launch Core Competencies Workshop

EmpowerBio partnered with FAES Learning Labs to launch the Core Competencies in Laboratory Techniques workshop at National Institute of Health. A huge thank you to the FAES team - Hazuki Miwa (FAES Director), and Ragavan Suresh (Lead Scientist and Lab Program Manager) for collaborating with EmpowerBio on this initiative and opening the doors to lab-based learning in this exciting new laboratory space.

Over five highly interactive days, participants moved from theory to practice, strengthening their readiness for academic and industry lab environments. The workshop covered: Lab safety and documentation, Hazard assessment, (Micro)pipetting, aseptic technique, Applied lab math, Buffer and solution preparation, SOPs, batch records, and deviations and more — all rooted in best practices for accuracy and precision in experiments. One of the workshop attendees captured the essence of the workshop well in the survey “The most valuable part of the course was the class interactions and hands-on tutorials completed. This allowed us to put into practice the theoretical part of the workshop.”

This training was designed and delivered by our expert instructors: Amrita Madabushi – Founder of EmpowerBio, with 15+ years of expertise in academic–industry partnerships and curriculum development. Da’Kuawn Johnson – Scientific Program Manager and Training Faculty, with strong knowledge of academic lab best practices and Sneha Saggurthy – Subject Matter Expert and Training Faculty, bringing deep expertise in quality, compliance, and GxP training.

This collaboration reflects EmpowerBio’s mission to prepare the next-generation bioscience workforce with hands-on, practical skills that translate directly into success in the lab. 

Survey Results and Feedback from the Attendees

EmpowerBio conducted a pre- and post-workshop survey that allowed attendees to do self-assessment of ten core competency skills used in the laboratory. Lab Safety, 2) Hazard Identification, 3) Aseptic Techniques (BSC), 4) SDS Interpretation, 5) Pipetting and Micropipetting, 6) Numeracy, 7) GDP, 8) SOP, 9) Batch Record, 10) Cleanroom & Contamination Practices. 

The data shows consistent improvement across all the core competency skills after the workshop, with Lab Safety and Pipetting/ Micropipetting showing the largest gains in competency levels. Skills like Batch Record and Aseptic Techniques started with lower pre-workshop scores but still demonstrated strong post-workshop improvement. Overall, participants moved from developing or moderate competency to competent or highly competent levels across nearly all skill areas. 

Feedback -

• Thank you all for your excellent work on putting together this workshop, for all your time, feedback and for guiding us to follow the best practices and techniques in the lab setting.
• EmpowerBio training faculty were very well prepared and made sure all topics were covered and discussed. 
• The most valuable part of the workshop was learning about the industry standards needed and how it is way different from academic standards
• EmpowerBio faculty provided a good insight of the industry side of labs and how important standards needed to be followed and how strict the government is.
• EmpowerBio team is a dream team and each training faculty has a unique way to portray science. When combining all of their backgrounds together in a course like this one, it was magical.