When scientists conducted the first successful genetic-engineering experiments in the 1970s, leaders in North Carolina paid attention. They realized that this emerging technology could bring substantial economic and societal benefits.

North Carolina seemed particularly well suited for biotechnology because its traditional industries - especially agriculture, food, forestry, and medicine - were among those that could benefit the most. North Carolina also had the necessary resources to develop biotechnology, including world-class research universities, an extensive community college system, abundant natural resources, a highly trained work force, and progressive state leadership.

Headquartered in Research Triangle Park with five regional offices statewide, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center supports biotechnology research, business, education and workforce training across the state.

The only question was: How could North Carolina best pursue biotechnology? A legislative study commission concluded that the state needed an organization dedicated exclusively to biotechnology development. With that imperative, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center was born in 1981 as the world's first government-sponsored biotechnology initiative. Initially a small agency within the Commerce Department, the Center was reconstituted in 1984 as a private, nonprofit corporation to provide long-term economic and societal benefits to North Carolina through support of biotechnology research, business, and education statewide.

As a neutral, nonpartisan organization that doesn't undertake scientific research itself, the center encourages interactions among industry, academia, and government for technological development and job creation. The center's 64-member staff, working with a 2007 budget of $17.6 million, runs programs that help move biotechnology from the laboratory to the marketplace. Though headquartered in Research Triangle Park, the center operates five small offices: a Western office in Asheville, a Greater Charlotte office in Charlotte, a Piedmont Triad office in Winston-Salem, an Eastern office in Greenville, and a Southeastern office in Wilmington.

"Few states are so well able to incorporate biotechnology tangibly across their actual and figural landscape as North Carolina," says Steven Burke, senior vice president of corporate affairs for the Center. "Regions statewide will be strengthened over time by targeted assistance, focused leadership, and development of niche sectors, from marine biotechnology and Christmas trees to regenerative medicine and natural biotechnology."

Developing biotechnology statewide is also a top priority of New Jobs Across North Carolina, the state's 2004 plan for biotechnology that the center developed with the help of a steering committee and 120 volunteers. The plan's goal is for North Carolina to have 125,000 bioscience jobs by 2023, which the state is well on its way to reaching. Much of that biotechnology growth emerges from a foundation that the center laid over two decades, with a cumulative state investment of $187 million in bioscience infrastructure.

Accomplishments of the center include:

• $80 million in grants to universities for equipment, research, and faculty recruitment

• $16 million in financial assistance to 100-plus startup companies

• Helping to recruit Merck, Novartis, Biogen Idec, Diosynth Biotechnology, KBI Biopharma, and other companies

• Sponsoring biotechnology workshops for 1,250 high school teachers statewide

• Developing the BioWork training course and assisting a statewide consortium to prepare as many as 3,000 workers per year for jobs in biomanufacturing and pharmaceutical production

• Leading the development of a 2007 strategic plan for North Carolina's leadership in biofuels.