A career fair designed to allow students to connect with scientists working with the latest tools and research in their respective fields is attracting larger numbers of prospective employers.

The Biotechnology Career Fair will be held Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the atrium of the Molecular Biology Building.

The fair, in its fifth year at Iowa State, is unique from other career fairs in that it draws students in all majors related to the discipline of biotechnology, rather than students from a specific college or department, said Walter Fehr, director of the Office of Biotechnology and distinguished professor of agriculture.

Iowa State is the only regent university to hold such a fair.

Lisa Lorenzen, director of industry relations and biotechnology liaison, said between 200 and 500 students generally attend the fair.

“We have about 30 different majors at Iowa State that incorporate biotechnology,” Lorenzen said. “We don’t have a degree … we chose to say that biotechnology is a set of tools that can be applied to many different areas.”

Example of majors with a tie to biotechnology range from agronomy to sociology, and from botany to philosophy and religious studies.

Lorenzen explained that biotechnology focuses on the latest tools and the newest innovations in science.

“[Biotechnology] started getting to be a hot thing in the mid-’80s,” she said. “It really took off in the mid-’90s.”

Lorenzen said around 20 businesses from the state of Iowa plan to attend the fair. The number of businesses has doubled from past years.

“Iowa State’s known [for biotechnology],” she said. “We have a good program and we turn out good students.”

Lorenzen said the fair is advantageous to both students and businesses because it allows a connection to be made between current and future scientists.

“[This fair] is smaller than most career fairs, but it’s focused, so [businesses] know they will be talking to scientists,” she said.

“It gives students a chance to talk to a scientist in the industry and find out what kind of a job [they] could get.”

The fair is open to both graduate and undergraduate students.

Lorenzen said the fair gives students an opportunity to explore job options in the state.

“A lot of students think you need to move to either coast to get a job in biotechnology,” she said. “We wanted students to know you can stay in Iowa.”