career after biology PhD

Graduate School
1

<p>Besides research or college-level teaching, what else can a PhD in something in the biological sciences (neuroscience, molecular biology, etc.) lead to?</p>

<p>I know there at some high schools, the teachers hold PhDs for example..</p>

2

<p>Gov't, e.g., NIH, CDC.</p>

3

<p>If you're interested, there's always patent law or science writing or working in a biotech company.</p>

4

<p>consulting <em>shudder</em></p>

5

<p>Sorry, I'm pretty clueless.</p>

<p>What exactly is consulting and why is it bad?</p>

6

<p>i've always wondered what working for biotech or working in industry entails. can anyone elaborate?</p>

7

<p>If you take the view that a key result of PhD training is a high degree of science literacy, then a wide range of jobs opens up. Personally, I went from a post-doc to business school to get an MBA. Since then I've sat squarely at the science/business interface, working on business relationships that involve science. In the pharma/biotech world, this is often called "business development" but can also be called "licensing". Note that the term "business development" has an entirely different meaning in service industries like aerospace, contract engineering and such, where the term is used to label sales folks. </p>

<p>Rather than rely on these boards, though, why not look through back issues of Science, Nature, Nature Bio, The Scientist, C&EN and such for their periodic career issues. The options are covered in much more depth there, including lengthly interviews with scientists who've made switches.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
i've always wondered what working for biotech or working in industry entails. can anyone elaborate?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It could entail a wide range of things - drug development, biomaterials for rehabilitative medicine, bioimaging, medical device development, genetic testing or engineering, gene therapy, synthetic bio, applications of bio (enzymes, etc) to the improvement of industrial processes...I'm sure there's more.</p>

9

<p>To be honest,biology is not a good idea for career.You can hardly find a job.</p>

10

<p>damn, that's depressing.</p>