<p>Is it med school ---> residency at a top research med school?</p>
<p>Or could biology or bioengineering be sufficient enough to land a job as a researcher?</p>
<p>You need a phd.
Many have an m.d. as well, but it’s not necessary.
bachelor’s or masters alone = lab tech</p>
<p>If you are looking to find “potential cures for diseases” we can split that into two categories: drug discovery and drug development. Drug discovery is testing compounds to see whether they have efficacy in treating certain diseases. Drug development is testing a compound that has been shown to have such efficacy in humans - clinical trials, essentially. </p>
<p>Angryelf is correct in saying that a PhD would be an excellent route if you wanted to pursue this as a career. The path you suggested will also open many doors for you on the academia side at a major teaching/research hospital. The other route is clinical trial management which often only requires a master’s - but you are once removed from the actual “discovery”.</p>
<p>If you are really interested in this field, do a search on “translational medicine” - this is the hot topic in drug discovery these days.</p>
<p>A Ph.D. is the safest way to go, but a Master’s with unique skills and/or experiences will also open doors. While one goes through academia to obtain the various degrees, I strongly recommend that every semester/every summer one finds a job in a lab on campus…any lab…doing anything including washing dishes. And then find a professor, senior year, who will allow an independent project for credit in their lab. And one needs to get to know their professors for those very important references required for graduate school applications. And finally one will need a true passion, a specific area of interest, which helps graduate school professors determine who can help them teach their classes and perform research in their lab.</p>