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In case you haven’t heard by now, biotechnology is no longer one of the best kept secrets of the pharmaceutical industry. Because small molecule blockbuster drugs are few and far between, every major pharmaceutical company in the world has announced plans to increase the percentage of protein-based drugs in their development pipeline. 

As strange as this may sound, most people working at pharmaceutical companies have little or no understanding of the science behind the biotechnology industry, its products and the skill sets required to compete in the industry. I learned this while working as a contract writer at a pharmaceutical company that was trying to transition from an emphasis on small molecules to biotechnology drugs. Shortly after management publicly announced its intention, signs began appearing in the building where I worked with messages like “Are you biotech to the core” or “Got biotech.” Not surprisingly, I found myself explaining the different between small molecules and biotechnology products to large numbers of colleagues during group lunches. Their lack of understanding about biotechnology was both surprising and troubling. I mean where have these people been for the past 35 years? 

While I thought that this phenomenon was unique to the company where I was working, it turns out —based on many conversations with employees at other companies—that it is pervasive in the pharmaceutical industry! Put simply, there are large numbers of pharmaceutical employees (and aspiring students for that matter) who know little about biotechnology and must quickly learn about an industry that they are being forced to work in so that they can keep their jobs! This presents time and logistical issues for many full time pharmaceutical employees—they simply don’t have the time or where-with-all to learn about biotechnology via traditional bricks and mortar training opportunities, e.g. undergraduate, graduate or certificate programs.

Recognizing a growing need, several academic institutions now offer online biotechnology courses and degree programs for undergraduate and graduate students. While these programs may not enable participants to work as bench scientists at life sciences companies (this requires hands-on wet laboratory training), they certainly provide students with the fundamental scientific and business underpinnings of the biotechnology industry.

Below you will find descriptions of a couple of online degree biotechnology programs and links to online undergraduate and graduate level biotechnology courses.

Online Biotechnology Degree Programs

The Johns Hopkins University – a prestigious brick-and-mortar research university – offers three online degree programs in advanced biotechnology: the M.S. in Bioinformatics, the M.S. in Bioscience Regulatory Affairs, and the M.S. in Biotechnology. (The M.S. in Biotech may involve a limited amount of on-campus instruction in Baltimore.) Students have up to five years to complete their degrees, but those who enroll for full-time study typically finish in two years.

The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) is among America’s largest providers of distance education. UMUC's Biotechnology Studies Program has been designated a “Professional Science Master’s Degree Program” by the Council of Graduate Schools. The program’s three specialization areas include: bioinformatics, biotechnology management, and biosecurity/biodefense. A dual online degree option is also available: students can earn an MBA in addition to the Master’s in Biotechnology by completing just a few additional courses.

Online Biotechnology Courses

Purdue University’s Department of Continuing Education frequently features online courses in horticulture and related fields that can help students prepare for careers in biotechnology. New choices are offered every semester.

MiraCosta College, a community college in Southern California, offers a number of online courses in biotechnology. The school’s website includes a five-year projection of course offerings.

While the current list of online biotechnology offerings is short, expect the number of online courses and degree programs to continue to grow in the future. If you are aware of or participate in other online biotechnology courses and degree programs, please feel free contact me about them.

Hat tip and thanks to Chesca and her colleagues at OnlineDegreeReviews.org for research and writing of this post!

Until next time,

Good luck and Good learning!

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While this isn’t a new topic, I wanted to raise the question again because I recently received a message  from a reader that greatly troubled me. The person who posted the comment has a PhD degree in biomedical engineering and is extremely angry with the existing system because of the lack of employment opportunities in her field. Put simply, she is so frustrated with the system that she no longer believes that it is ethical to advise young people to pursue careers in the life sciences. I know that she isn’t alone and that many of you share her anger and frustration with the lies (as she put it) about employment opportunities for life sciences PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows

From time to time, I am invited by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to talk about alternative careers in the life sciences. I try to remain upbeat and positive during my presentation but generally I can’t control myself by the Q&A session. Invariably, I rant and rave about how dysfunctional academia has become. Interestingly, I recently was uninvited by my former graduate department where I was slated to present a seminar on alternate career choices for life scientists. As the tenured faculty member (you know how I feel about tenure) who would have sponsored my visit told me “the seminars that we offer our students are scientific in nature and much different than many of the topics that I discuss on my very interesting blog.” Consequently, he informed me that I was no longer invited to give my talk (I was previously invited by the Department Chair who happened to be a former colleague of mine who decided to move to another institution before my visit). In an e-mail response to his un-invitation, I told him that I wanted to visit the Department and give the talk because I believe that my graduate education is what enabled me to maneuver the minefield that ultimately became my career path. Also, I told him that I wanted to share my insights and career experiences with current graduate students and postdoctoral fellows because I thought that many may benefit from them. Not surprisingly, I never heard back from him. 

The point that I am trying to make is that my message about alternative careers for PhD students is diametrically opposed to the mission of most PhD programs; which is to prepare 100% of their students for academic careers. Unfortunately, as I have stated many times in the past, only about 10% of those who receive life sciences PhD degrees land academic appointments. What are the remaining 90% of the folks who toiled long and hard for their PhD degrees suppose to do with their lives? In the past, as many as 50% or more of these students were able to garner jobs as research scientists at biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies or with government agencies like the CDC, FDA, EPA and others. Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry has laid off over 200,000 employees in the past 3 years, funding for biotech companies has hit an all time low and we are experiencing the worst recession in almost 70 years which is causing government agencies to stop hiring! This begs the question: what are graduate students pursuing PhD degrees and postdoctoral fellows suppose to do to put food on the table to feed their families and themselves? 

While I don’t have an easy answer to that question, I can tell you that getting angry and frustrated or dropping out of the system isn’t going to change anything. I will also tell you that the system isn’t going to change by itself! To that end, it may make sense for all of you angry and frustrated graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to band together and tell your advisors and mentors that “you are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” To show them that you are serious, I highly recommend that your offer them a plan to address your concerns about finding gainful employment (not decade long postdoctoral fellowships) following completion of your PhD degrees. For example, you may suggest that they add alternate career certificate and degree programs to their existing curricula. Or, if new programs are too costly, suggest that they offer courses that showcase alternate career options like entrepreneurship, science writing or medical communications. Finally, at the very list, insist that they work with local companies and organization to create sponsored internship opportunities and get them to commit to supporting annual career development symposia or job fairs for graduate students and postdocs.

For the past decade or more, I have struggled to convince many of my academic colleagues to consider any and all of the above suggestions. Unfortunately, my pleas for creation of new courses and programs have fallen upon deaf ears! Given my current lack of success, I suspect that it is going to take more than one person (me) to induce the academic establishment to consider systemic change. That said anybody who may be interested in joining the “cause” to improve employment opportunities for PhD life scientists, please feel free to contact me!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Organizing!!!!!

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For the past 10 years or so, I have been providing career counseling and development seminars and workshops for life scientists. In the early years, students, postdocs and a smattering of faculty members would attend to learn about the industry trends, the job market and more recently alternate careers for PhDs and postdoctoral fellows. However, over the last few years, a disturbing trend has emerged—the lack of faculty participation at these events. 

Yesterday, I was invited to participate as a panel member to moderate a career development event sponsored by the graduate student and postdoctoral associations at the University Of Rochester School Of Medicine. The event was well attended (over 85 participants) and the discussion lasted for more than 2 hours. Joining me on the panel was a PhD-trained scientist/manager from Bristol Myers Squibb and a healthcare company executive who received his PhD degree from the university about 16 years ago. Many of the questions asked by the participants were spot on and revealed that graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are extremely anxious about their futures. The panel did its best to describe what it takes to get a job in the life sciences, the process and steps required to successfully win jobs and some ideas for alternate career options for PhD-trained scientists. Unfortunately, not a single University of Rochester medical school faculty member attended the event. In fact, I met the PI of one of the postdocs who sponsored my visit and he said with all sincerity (I think) “Thanks for coming...the students are really looking forward to your talk.” Obviously, I don’t it ever crossed his mind that he, like his students and postdocs might learn and benefit from a discussion about career options and hear (probably for the first time) how anxious and fearful his and other students are about future job prospects.

The fact that faculty members are routinely eschewing career development seminars and forums is troubling and extremely disturbing for a variety of reasons. First, as I have said many times before, I believe that PIs have moral and ethical obligations to help their students determine what careers they are best suited for. I don’t think it is too much to ask or labor-intensive for PIs to learn about what is going on with the job market outside of academia. Despite an ongoing lack of tenured track faculty positions and the extremely fierce competition to win them, academicians continue to exclusively train and prepare students for academic careers. This makes absolutely no sense from a “supply and demand” perspective. Second, the lack of faculty support and participation sends a clear message to graduate students and postdocs that their anxieties, fears and concerns about job prospects simply isn’t that important to their PIs.  The mantra of most academicians —“just continue to do good science and everything will be okay”— is outdated, anachronistic and self serving (for PIs) at best.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the failure of  tenured faculty members to actively engage and participate in discussions about career options reveals the unbridled contempt that most academicians have for scientists who work outside of academia. Most academics choose to not concern themselves with non-academic and mundane issues like jobs and careers. And why should they? Once they win tenure, their lives are set because they are guaranteed jobs and benefits for life!

We are living in very challenging and troubling times. In the past three years, over 180,000 pharmaceutical workers lost their jobs and national unemployment will likely hit 15%.  Academic and government jobs are hard to come by and the competition for these jobs is ferocious and extremely competitive. And, sadly, current academic training programs are woefully inadequate to prepare graduate students and postdocs for alternate career opportunities in the life sciences. 

As I have stated numerous times before, life science graduate training programs are in dire need of systemic change and be overhauled to remain relevant. Unfortunately, systemic changes are unlikely because tenured faculty members can’t be forced or induced to change their practices, attitudes or beliefs. While a minority of life sciences faculty members realizes that the system is broken, the majority doesn’t.  To that end, if graduate students and postdoctoral fellows want change to occur than they must band together and collectively send a message to their PIs and mentors that “We are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore!” Anything short of a widespread massive protest will be ineffectual!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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People frequently ask me why I decided to get a PhD degree to become a scientist. For the past 30 years, I have tried to explain to people why I decided to spend seven long years of “blood, sweat and tears” to attain that elusive degree. While anyone who has earned a PhD degree understands what drove them to do it, it is difficult to explain to others that the decision has little to do with career paths and salary considerations and is largely driven by passion— and perhaps more aptly—obsession. That is why Carole and Richard Rifkin’s film “Naturally Obsessed: The Making of Scientist”—an emotional and gritty film that follows the lives of three Columbia graduate students on their quest to obtaining their PhD degrees—is resonating with scientists, students and the public.

The film, which took five years to make and was launched in March 2009, follows the progress of three X-ray crystallography graduate students, Rob, Killington (Kil) and Gabrielle, who worked in Larry Shapiro’s laboratory at Columbia University Medical Center. Work in Larry’s laboratory focuses on elucidating the X-crystallographic structure of proteins that are thought to be involved in appetite control. While Rob, Kil and Gabrielle share a common goal—getting a PhD degree—they are very different people. Rob is a rebellious, boisterous, self-assured free thinker (who was thrown out of a previous laboratory) whereas Kil is a more staid, soft spoken pragmatist from the Midwest. Gabrielle, who returned to graduate school to pursue a PhD degree after a stint as a laboratory technician at a company, loves science but isn’t certain that she has the mettle to realize her dream. Each of them understands that time is of the essence and they work feverishly and unrelentingly  to insure that their competitors don't beat them to the punch and publish first!

Despite their obvious personality differences, each is driven and obsessed with producing perfectly-formed protein crystals that are suitable for X-ray crystallography analysis. The film accurately and painstakingly depicts the inevitable emotional “ups and downs” of laboratory research, the personal struggles and the often difficult life decisions that are made when pursuing a PhD degree. In the end, Rob, Kil and Laura find their own career paths as scientists and perhaps, more importantly. come to terms with the decisions that they made during their journeys.

Carole, a documentary filmmaker, and Richard, Chairman Emeritus of the Sloan-Kettering Institute and founding Chairman of the New York Structural Biology Center, made the film to portray the “reality of doing science” and raise awareness about scientific research. The film emphasizes that science, like art, requires creativity, persistence and unyielding commitment and dedication. The Rifkinds interviewed many NYC-based academic laboratories before choosing Larry Shapiro’s laboratory as the subject of their documentary film. Larry’s laboratory was chosen because X-crystallography is visual (and lends itself to film making) and Carol had a hunch that “there was a story to be told there.”

During a recent interview with the Rifkinds, I mentioned that if I had seen the film as a high school or undergraduate student, I probably would have skipped graduate school. Carole responded and said, “Yes, the hard work and emotional challenges portrayed in the film might turn some students off but we wanted to portray scientific research the way it is and remain true to its realities.” She added, "while the film focuses on science graduate students it is also relevant and accurately reflects the trials and tribulations experienced by PhD students in the humanities and the arts.” 

One of the more troubling moments of the film for me is when Larry mentions that scientists, like artists, “represent the fringe of society.” The fact that a prominent, successful scientist views himself as different, and on the fringes of society, doesn’t bode well for the public perception of science or scientists for that matter. Another troubling aspect of the film is that Rob, Kil and Gabrielle are clearly being groomed for academic careers despite the fact that roughly only 10% of life sciences PhDs secure academic positions at the end of their training. I pointed this out to Richard and he said that he agrees that it is a troubling trend and that “alternate career options for PhDs is the subject of Carole's  and his next film.”

Since it launch in March, the film has been screened at over 60 high schools, colleges, medical schools, professional science associations, government agencies and biotechnology companies. While the film may not be “right” for everyone, it is a must see for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and for members of the public who want a rare glimpse into the emotionally-charged and highly competitive world of scientific research. For those of you, who may be interested in arranging a screening, please visit the Naturally Obsessed: The Making of a Scientist website or contact Hayley

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!

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After yesterday's post about career planning for life scientists, one of my soon to be former students in the Fundamentals of Bioscience Program aptly pointed out that my readers might have benefitted more if I had, in fact, offered information about alternate career possibilities for bioscientists.  I don't want the student to get too overconfident but I had the same thought immediately after I uploaded the post.  

Rather than modify the previous post, I decided to upload the presentation that I gave to the U Penn Graduate Student Biomedical Association yesterday.  However, as many of my former (or soon to be former) students will tell you, my PowerPoint presentations, while informative, are not as complete as you might think.  To get the real skinny on alternate careers, you will have to attend one of my seminars on the topic where I provide attendees with additional pearls of wisdom and some funny stories about my own journey along an oft times circuitous career path!

Until next time.....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

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Yesterday, I gave a lecture entitled “Alternate Careers: Taking the Road Less Traveled” to over 100 members of the University of Pennsylvania’s Biomedical Graduate Student Association. As always, there were many good questions and comments during and after the presentation. Some of the career anecdotes offered by several of the students reminded me of a conversation that I had several weeks ago with one of my Fundamentals of Bioscience students—I teach a Product Development and Regulatory Affairs course in the program—who refreshed my memory about a typical graduate student approach to career development and job searching. “We don’t think about jobs or our careers until we begin writing our PhD theses” she said. “Until then, our advisers don’t talk about careers or jobs and only bring it up because our funding will run out” she added. Admittedly, I had forgotten this because so many years have passed since my graduate student days. That said, it forced me to consider how much the life sciences job market has changed since I was graduate student and how vitally important it is for today’s graduate students to think about and possibly explore different career options throughout the course of their graduate training.

Historically, there were very few career options for life scientists—it was either a tenure track faculty appointment or, as a poor second choice, a job at a pharmaceutical or biotechnology. Unfortunately, academics jobs are hard to come by and since 2007 over 60,000 pharmaceutical R&D scientists have lost their jobs and more cuts are expected. Also, many of these jobs are likely come back after the economy improves because many of the R&D activities performed by these scientists are being outsourced to India, China and elsewhere. This suggests that a majority of life sciences graduate students who receive their PhDs within the next few years won’t be able to secure traditional life sciences jobs. While a majority of US life sciences graduate training programs recognize and understand the implications of the changing job market, many are reluctant to discuss alternate career options with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Even fewer, encourage or support students or postdoctoral fellows who want to engage in “extracurricular activities” to explore alternate career options. In fact, several U Penn students told me that they have to obtain written permission from their adviser before they can take courses or participate in extra-departmental activities. As one student quipped “What I do on my own time should be my business not my boss's.”

I always conclude my alternate career talk by saying “Nobody ever guaranteed you a job after completion of your PhD or postdoctoral training.” And, “if you wanted a job after completing your education, you ought to have gone to medical school, dental school, law school or any other profession that requires licensure to practice your craft.” While this may sound harsh, I believe that the decision to get a PhD is a personal one and based on discussion with many of my colleagues, most didn’t enter graduate school expecting a job to be waiting them when they completed their training. Nevertheless, I contend that graduate departments that continue to train and prepare students for traditional academic careers —knowing that over 90% won’t find jobs (other than postdocs) after their training is finished —are being disingenuous and even deceitful. Why haven’t academician realized that there is a plethora of job opportunities for life scientists outside of academia?

Like it or not, the life sciences job market has undergone radical changes in the past decade. Unfortunately, academics continue to adhere to dogmatic and anachronistic ideas and practices that don’t prepare their students and postdoctoral fellows for jobs in “the real world.” I contend that informing and enlightening graduate students about alternate career paths and, allowing them to explore some of these opportunities will not impede or hinder laboratory research. Instead, I believe it would help to improve and expedite its progress. As one U Penn graduate student shared with me over a couple of beers “If they would just tell us the truth and give us some idea about our options, it would certainly improve morale, reduce our anxiety and allow us to focus on our research because we would know what is out there!” As the old adage goes”ignorance is bliss.” But, in my experience, knowledge is power!

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!

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After months of complaints by university officials and scientific organizations, the US State Department announced on Tuesday that it is taking action to speed up the delay-plagued visa process for foreign graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.

For the past few years, foreign science and engineering graduate students and postdoctoral seeking to obtain or renew visas have routinely experienced long delays sometimes taking as long as several months. The problem became so acute that students and researchers who left the US often found themselves stranded abroad, not knowing when their visas might be approved.  Not surprisingly, the delays have caused enormous problems for American universities, which heavily rely on foreign nationals to fill slots in graduate and post-doctoral science and engineering programs. Over the last year or so, visa difficulties having discouraged many scientific organizations from holding meetings in the United States. Some life sciences researchers said the apparent reluctance of the United States to accept them encouraged them to seek work in other countries.

The State Department has hired additional personal to deal with the visa backlog but will not say how long it will take to correct the problem. A state department official indicated that they hope to handle routine visa requests within a two week time frame.

While never officially acknowledged, the Bush Administration intentionally slowed the visa process for foreign researchers to “guard against proliferation of science and technical information.” In other words, the visa backlog was likely intentionally created to prevent foreign drug companies and national scientific agencies from infringing on American intellectual property and patent rights—an ongoing practice that clearly frightened many of the jingoistic officials running the Bush State Department.

However, what the Bush administration failed to understand was that a majority of foreign students who train in the US want to remain here after completion of their studies. The visa backlog and its protectionist intent forced many foreign nationals to forgo their US training and return to their home countries to seek employment. This was beginning to threaten scientific and technical innovation in US laboratories because for the past decade or longer American students have shied away from science and engineering to pursue careers in business and computer science. Ironically, the Bush Administration’s protectionist leanings may have contributed—more than they care to admit—

 to the massive job cuts that have taken place at American life sciences companies in the past few years because of availability of a US-trained work forces in countries like India and China. This provides American life sciences companies with reasonable assurances that preclinical and clinical research outsourced to these countries will be conducted according to US standards. Further, it also provides foreign companies with unbridled access to a growing cadre of US-trained scientists that will enable them to compete on a head-to-head basis with American life sciences companies.

Fortunately, the Obama Administration, unlike the previous one, delivers on its promises and appears to be willing to work hard to restore science and technology to its rightful place in American society.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (it may now be possible for many foreign students!)

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Over the past several years, I have publicly called for fundamental changes in graduate education and training for life scientists. To that end, I was delighted to read an OP-ED piece in today’s New York Times entitled “End Universities as We Know It” written by Professor Mark C. Taylor, Chairperson of the religion department at Columbia University. 

In his post, Professor Taylor recommended several fundamental and systemic changes that ought to improve the likelihood that graduate students and postdoctoral fellows find jobs at the end of their graduate education. While some of Dr. Taylor’s ideas are novel and innovative, two in particular; 1) expanding the range of career opportunities for graduate students and postdocs and 2) abolishing tenure and mandatory retirement; are ones that I have suggested many times in the past few years. Rather than paraphrase, I decided to repost what Dr Taylor said about these two very important, seminal issues.

Expand the range of professional options for graduate students

Most graduate students will never hold the kind of job for which they are being trained. It is, therefore, necessary to help them prepare for work in fields other than higher education. The exposure to new approaches and different cultures and the consideration of real-life issues will prepare students for jobs at businesses and nonprofit organizations. Moreover, the knowledge and skills they will cultivate in the new universities will enable them to adapt to a constantly changing world.

Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure

Initially intended to protect academic freedom, tenure has resulted in institutions with little turnover and professors impervious to change. After all, once tenure has been granted, there is no leverage to encourage a professor to continue to develop professionally or to require him or her to assume responsibilities like administration and student advising. Tenure should be replaced with seven-year contracts, which, like the programs in which faculty teach, can be terminated or renewed. This policy would enable colleges and universities to reward researchers, scholars and teachers who continue to evolve and remain productive while also making room for young people with new ideas and skills.

For many years now, I have been struggling with the moral and ethical obligations of graduate education. Recently, I came to the conclusion that it is our role as educators to selflessly impart knowledge and training to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows so that they can pursue the careers (and lives) that many have trained for a decade or more. I think Professor Taylor’s view of the role of an educator says it best: “Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.” This is the attitude that must be by academicians if America wants to remain competitive in the life sciences.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!

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Unlike others, life scientists have been slow to use social media to look for jobs or network to enhance career opportunities.  Many scientists  have  Facebook accounts but view it and other social media tools like Twitter simply as a means to stay in touch with family and friends.  However, social media can be a very powerful tool for scientists who are looking for jobs or the next big career move.

To that end, I presented a seminar at Experimental Biology this past weekend in New Orleans entitled "Social Media and Career Development for Life Sciences" that offer suggestions on how to use social media to land a job or jumpstart a career in the life sciences industry.  For those of you who may be interested, I posted the presentation below:

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Did you know that the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world spent close to $50 billion dollars last year on R&D? That sum could be used to purchase the entire US biotechnology industry except for the five largest companies—Genentech, Amgen, Gilead Genzyme and Celgene. Further, pharma’s R&D budget is about 4 times the R&D budget of all of the US biotechnology companies combined. According to a blurb in breakingviews.com, Pfizer alone spent $8 billion last year which was greater than the sum spent by biotech’s top five companies. What this tells us is that pharmaceutical companies are grossly unproductive when it comes to drug discovery and development. This would explain why nearly three-quarters of all new medicines approved for sale in the US last year originated at biotechnology companies.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that biotechnology companies are much more efficient at R&D than pharmaceutical companies. More importantly this suggests that something must change so that pharma can continue receive adequate ROI on internal discovery programs. Perhaps big pharma ought to spend a greater portion of its R&D budget on biotech mergers and acquisitions rather than continuing to invest in inefficient and failing internal R&D programs. While biotechnologynology companies are exceptional in drug discovery, they are severely lacking when it comes to clinical development of new drugs. This is largely due the high costs of conducting human clinical trials (which are required for regulatory approval of all new medicines). Most biotechnology companies are strapped for cash and don’t have sufficient funds to conduct clinical trials on their own.

Not surprisingly, given the recent financial downturn, there has been a recent spate of deals in which pharma has been willing to pay large sums of money for clinical development rights to promising new biotechnology drugs. Moreover, a majority of the almost 160,000 employees layed off by pharma companies in the past few years have been R&D scientists. This suggests that pharma is beginning to realize that its money may be better spent doing deals or buying biotech companies rather than continuing to invest large sums of money into it’s own unproductive R&D programs. Unfortunately, this paradigm shift doesn’t bode well for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows who are training in the life sciences. This is because many entry-level biotech positions, traditionally filled by newly-minted PhDs and postdoctoral fellows will likely be filled by experienced, pharmaceutical employees who lost their jobs in the recent rounds of layoffs. As much as I hate to say this, if I were a life sciences graduate student or postdoctoral fellow considering an R&D career in industry, I would begin to explore alternative career options.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!

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For the past five years, I have been giving career development seminars that offer graduate students and postdoctoral fellows alternate careers choices (instead of research) for life scientists. The intent of these seminars is to get students who may not be enamored with a possible life long career at the bench (I know that there a lot of you out there) to think about what they really want to do after they complete their graduate or postdoctoral training.

I recently met Jane Chin (on Twitter) who, like me, has had an unorthodox career trajectory for a life scientist. After exchanging several tweets, I learned that we both are microbiologists, Cornell University graduates, entrepreneurs and social media enthusiasts. But, the main reason I am telling you about Jane is that she crafted a fascinating PowerPoint presentation entitled “3 Lessons About Career Life From a Career Nomad” that provides insights into the decisions and choices that she made to shape her current career path. I highly recommend that you take a peek at the presentation—it may help to reduce some future career stress and angst!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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