Bloggers Massimo and DrugMonkey have questioned whether it is reasonable to expect graduate student trainees to have multiple publications result from their thesis research. S. Pelech maintains that every effort should be expended for graduate students to publish original research in scientific journals, but they should still be able to receive a graduate degree if their thesis research in a competitive area has been scooped and no longer has sufficient novelty upon its completion to be published. Read More...

Tags: Career, Graduate training, Scooped

Blogger DrdrA at at Blue Lab Coats suggested that grad schools teach students how to hypothesize, design experiments, analyze the data, and write research papers, but not how to lead a group or become an effective PI that can build a strong research team and program. S. Pelech points out that there are also many other qualities, such as the ability to teach, fund raise, and budget, that are also ingredients to success, and while leadership ability might be partly genetic, it is further developed during a lifetime of observation and experience. Read More...

Tags: Career, Leadership, Training

Blogger Holly at From Bench to Business described four issues for any scientist-entrepreneur to consider before beginning their own bio-business: potential for failure, transition from science to business interests, development and application of a comprehensive business plan, and timelines to success. S. Pelech provides further reflections on the demands and obstacles confronting a scientist trying to start and build a biotech company. Read More...

Tags: Business, Career, Starting companies

With the disappearance of mandatory retirement, a debate is growing as to whether younger scholars' careers are blocked by their older (and tenured) professors. S. Pelech observes that the tenure debate has been ranging long before mandatory retirement was abolished in many countries and that tenure permits university faculty to tackle riskier research that can lead to scientific breakthroughs. Read More...

Tags: Career, Tenure, Retirement

Blogger Damn Good Technician is irritated that research supervisors sometime instruct their trainees to help prepare their own letters of reference. S. Pelech points out that when he requests such a draft letter, it is because it often provides a useful self-assessment by the person for their own benefit, so they can appreciate the amount of time that it takes to produce a good letter, and to improve the prospects of including points that might have over looked that could benefit the individual. Read More...

Tags: Career, Letters of reference

Blogger Comrade PhysioProf makes a case for the usefulness of lab rotations for graduate students as part of the selection process for their research supervisor and training. S. Pelech lists a few negatives for long lab rotations and describes how shorter lab rotations are used at the University of British Columbia in the Experimental Medicine Graduate Program. Read More...

Tags: Career, Graduate training, Lab rotations

At Isis the Scientist's blog, a new faculty principal investigator shared satirical "tips on how NOT to get a postdoc in academia. S. Pelech shares his observations with applications from hundreds of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to his research laboratory over the last 24 years, and offers useful advice on finding and getting the right matches. Read More...

Tags: Career, Graduate training, Post-doctoral training

Scott Kern at Johns Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center has observed that researchers — particularly cancer researchers at his institution — have apparently lost their passion for their work, and that patients are suffering as a result. His criticisms has raised the ire of many other bloggers , who have challenged his view. S. Pelech notes that the absence of trainees and established scientists during weekends and evenings in institutions does not mean that they are not still working. With the the advent of personal computers and the Internet, it is not necessary to come to work to read the literature, plan experiments and analyze the results. Read More...

Tags: Career, Research passion, Working time

Blogger Massimo Boninsegni at Exponential Book said that when it comes to choosing a lab group with which to work, there is an approximate "optimal" lab size, "beyond which productivity ... no longer grows proportionally to the monetary investment, and even the effectiveness [of the lab] as a training and educational venue decreases. S. Pelech agrees and further points out that lab politics can be very problematic in "sink or swim" lab groups, when the principal investigator is just too busy to attend to the needs of each trainee. Read More...

Tags: Lab Size, Career

Blogger Odyssey at Pondering Blather offered advice on how applicants for faculty positions can distinguish themselves to improve their employment prospects, including thoroughly researching their prospective institution, crafting an intuitive, easy-to-follow CV and a comprehensive — yet concise — research plan and teaching statement, and having "the important stuff up front." S. Pelech comments that while this can help, applicants must also suitably prepare themselves well in advance for such an undertaking. If the applicant does not have the requisite training with clear evidence of research, teaching and management ability, then he or she should acquire such capabilities first. Read More...

Tags: Career, Job hunting

Justine Cassell, the incoming director of Carnegie Mellon University's Human Computer Interaction Institute, in a Q&A-style profile for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, explained how she deals with "with work/life balance" by trying to integrate her work and her life in a synergy model. S. Pelech observes that while there are some less desirable aspects of an academic researcher's job, such as grant application writing and committee service, research and teaching is generally an extremely pleasurable experience. Naturally then, it is not surprising that many scientists are engaged for long hours almost every day in activities related to their scientific passions. Read More...

Tags: Career, Life style

Blogger Cath@VWXYNot argues that a 3-year PhD degree that dispenses with courses and results in few publications is not necessarily inferior to more demanding PhD programs. S. Pelech cautions that in the absence of previous Master's level training, this strategy is not recommended if one is contemplating a serious research career. Ultimately, the ability of a trainee to secure a permanent job in academia or industry will require clear demonstration of research ability through many original scientific publications in which the trainee has played a major role. Read More...

Tags: Career, PhD training

Irvine, Calif.-based firm CareerBliss conducted 200,000 independent employee reviews from 70,000 jobs all over the US and concluded that biotechnology employees are happier with their jobs than workers in any other professions. Measures of workplace happiness included the worker's relationship with their boss and co-workers, work environment, job resources, compensation, growth opportunities, company culture, company reputation, daily tasks and job control over the work that they do on a daily basis. S. Pelech comments that if one is engaged in a decent paying job where you are intellectually stimulated by the tasks at hand, work with other highly intelligent people who are also employees, collaborators or customers, and are dedicated towards such laudable goals as to improve the health of the sick, it is hard to imagine a better vocation. Read More...

Tags: Career, Biotech jobs, Job satisfaction

Paul Krugman of The New York Times wrote that many jobs for recent college grads are being rendered "obsolete" by advances in technology. Blogger Mike the Mad Biologist envisions that with increasing automation there will be less opportunities for researchers involved in data generation, but more need for those with informatics training on data data analysis. S. Pelech comments that Biology has been primarily a descriptive science and the sequencing of genomes and determination of the 3D structures of the proteins encoded by their genes has really just carried on this tradition. However, he envisions that we are at the brink of a major paradigm shift in which molecular and cellular biology are on the verge of becoming much more constructive and predictive, and this will spur on innovation and creativity that can truly transform health care and many diverse industries including those for food, clothing, shelter and energy production. Such a biorevolution will be achieved by a work force of scientists that will require a lot more training than what we actually typically offer today. Read More...

Tags: Career, Jobs

Blogger Nathan Ley in the Guardian described the difficulty he and his acquaintances have recently experienced in getting accepted into a PhD training in graduate school due in part to cutbacks in science funding and the stiff competition for limited spots. S. Pelech notes that without any advertisement, last year he has received over 150 enquiries for a graduate student position in his academic lab, the vast majority arising from China, India and Iran. China's higher education institutes had over 31 million students, an increase of some 35% from 2005 levels, so it is not surprising that many of the best and brightest of students from China and other developing countries are looking to the West for graduate and post-graduate training, and probably subsequently permanent jobs. Read More...

Tags: Career, Graduate training, China

William Deresiewicz at The Nation wrote that because there are too many PhDs for the number of academic jobs available, they are "cheaper to hire and easier to fire, and save institutions money. Dr. Deresiewicz suggests that tenured professors need to speak out and spear-head initiatives to create better opportunities for new faculty with longer term prospects. S. Pelech comments that it is untenable that university or government lab positions could or should be available for the vast majority, and that industry has to be able to employ these highly trained and skilled individuals. Academic institutes and government agencies should be facilitating the ability of entrepreneurial professors to create companies rather than erecting barriers that stifle such activities, for example, on the basis of conflict of interest. Read More...

Tags: Career, Jobs, Retirement

Blogger Jennifer Rohn at Mind the Gap summarized a recent round table discussion that highlighted significant structural problems and instabilities in the academic workforce, and differing opinions on how to deal with the issue, including restriction into entry, training graduates better for industry or encouraging early academic career retirement. S. Pelech concurs that there are too many scientists at present and we are training new investigators at a faster rate than ever before, which is exacerbating the problem. However, the solution is not to encourage early retirement of senior scientists, but rather to increase in private-public partnerships to foster the growth of jobs in the biotech/biopharma industry. Read More...

Tags: Career, Jobs, Graduate training, Retirement

Kelly Rae Chi at Nature noted that as the DNA sequencing process becomes more and more automated, the analysis of the data is becoming more challenging and requires increasing bioinformatics expertise. S. Pelech argues that while it is desirable to have in-house programmers to help analyze data, it is necessary to train more graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with a much deeper and broader understanding of biochemistry, systems and molecular biology than what is typically offered today. Read More...

Tags: Career, DNA Sequencing, Bioinformatics, Graduate training, Post-doctoral training

Bloggers Candid Engineer, DrugMonkey and Comrade PhysioProf have suggested that principal investigators should let their trainees have more free rein in the design, execution and interpretation of experiments, and that the PI's should really focus on getting funding, recruiting, training, and trouble-shooting after the fact. S. Pelech argues that a PI should definitely be very familiar with the underlying theory and limitations of technologies that are being used by the trainees under their supervision and take a strong and active lead in guiding the research of their more junior trainees to avoid waste and unnecessarily prolongation of M.Sc. and Ph.D. thesis projects. Read More...

Tags: Career, Lab bench, Hands on research, Graduate training

Success in science is proposed by blogger Zen Faulkes at NeuroDojo to depend more on perseverence than genius. S. Pelech agrees and notes that high curiosity and a real passion for their work gives leading scientists an edge. Read More...

Tags: Career, Scientific progress