Introduction
California State University, Hayward (CSUH) is a comprehensive university with over 13,000 students. The University is located in the foothills above Hayward and is well situated between Berkeley, San Jose and the San Francisco Peninsula.

The Biotechnology Certificate Program (BCP) was established at CSUH in 1986 to meet the personnel requirements of the rapidly expanding Bay Area biotechnology industry. The program was among the first in California to offer an integrated series of courses in the molecular life sciences leading to a certificate. Since that time the field of biotechnology has grown and matured. New areas of emphasis and needs have become apparent. To address two of these needs CSUH is presenting two new programs of study in Bioinformatics and Regulatory Affairs. The Bioinformatics program is offered in the evening and the Regulatory Affairs program is completely on-line and is offered in association with San Diego State University.

The BCP is staffed by research faculty from the Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry. The BCP is a competitive, limited enrollment program emphasizing close supervision and instruction in current theoretical and practical training in molecular life sciences.

Over the past eighteen years the BCP has placed over 230 graduates in the biotechnology industry and in government and academic laboratories.

Each course is ten weeks in length and most feature a minimum of 60 hours of hands on training. The current curriculum was designed after extensive consultation with representatives from academic and commercial laboratories in biotechnology.