<p>How does one become the one who studies and invents new medicines??? </p>
<p>What do I major in college and what kind of graduate school do I go to??? </p>
<p>Is it pharmacy school? or something like biology graduate school??? </p>
<p>??? </p>
<p>Thanx - ^_^</p>
<p>chemical engineer?</p>
<p>Chances are, you won't "invent" a new medicine.</p>
<p>Did you know that over 50% of all existing drugs/medicines today were originally products that exist in nature?</p>
<p>A lot of the "finding new medicines" occurs in going through literally tens of thousands of natural product extracts and testing each one to see if it has any activity against well-known problems.</p>
<p>This is how aspirin was developed :)</p>
<p>Oh, and antibiotics occur naturally as well</p>
<p>So I'll take your question a little bit more in-depth:</p>
<p>If you want to find and discover (note I don't use invent), you want to be a chemist. If you want to develop artificial drugs or develop natural products into drugs, you want to be a biochem engineer</p>
<p>Biochemistry would also be a good major. Biochemical engineering would probably be the best.</p>
<p>chemical engineers make the machines that mass produce those things, not actually the medicines...prolly like a Biochemist</p>
<p>The correct field would be pharmacology. Usually one majors in chemistry and then goes to graduate school in chemistry, biochemistry, or pharmacology. Many colleges are strong in this area, but Wisconsin, Duke, Michigan, Purdue, UCSB, U of Sciences in Philadelphia, and SUNY Buffalo are particularly good.</p>
<p>You don't need a degree. Just leave stuff around the house and let it mold.</p>
<p>hahaha you're funny yougotjohn</p>
<p>Probably a researcher. That is, someone with a PhD or MD and does research as a job in some sort of lab, and in your case would be experimenting with new cures, medicines, treatments and such. Like how you read in scientific magazines, they always say something like, "Researchers at (name of some institution, school, or labratory) recently discovered that (some chemical) speeds up recovery in mice with (some disease)."</p>
<p>You could possibly major in biomedical engineering as well. You don't necessarily work with drugs all day, but you develop the tools and instruments that make discovering them possible, and working to eliminate other make other medical related problems more efficiently. And actually, what really got me into it was that I was talking to Biomed grad students who were trying to to develop a way to treat leukemia by injecting something into the body instead of using kemotherapy. (or something like that, it was over a year ago, so the details are kinda fuzzy). Also, at Duke...Biomedical Engineers are working on developing the first engineered blood vessels.</p>
<p>You are thinking of pharmacology (and/or other related graduate degree). For your undergraduate training, you will need a good grounding in the biological and chemical sciences (and all the attendent math and physics course work). If you interested in psycopharmacology, then a good dose of psychology would also help. When I was in pharmacology decades ago, (and I am sure it is still true) researchers from many different fields could be found on drug discovery teams: biomedical researchers (with Ph.D.s and M.D.s behind their names) - immunology, psychology, toxicology, microbiology, biochemistry, endocrinology, cardiology, ...; chemists; biostatistians; clinicians. If you want to include medical devices and such, then you can add in the engineers, orthopedics and more.</p>
<p>If you are just starting out in college now, I would suggest staying close to the sciences. Then when you are ready for graduate school, you can decide on the particular areas on which you would like to focus. That may help you decide on what programs to send your applications. The pharmacology programs will be associated with medical schools. Remember though, not just the pharmacology programs turn out drug researchers. When I was in pharmacology, my husband was in biophysics. Some of the biophysics grads also ended in drug research areas. At the graduate school and post-doctoral levels, the lab you work in is as important as the school you attend.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>