careers in biochemistry ?

[coin]

hello..

was wondering if anyone here is studying (or has studied) biochemistry or biotechnology, and if so, what their focus & goals are, and how they're finding the course?

also, generally, what sort of career opportunities/career paths exist in biochemistry in australia and overseas.

i'm studying ayurveda at the moment and doing a certificate 4 in science at tafe (because i didn't do year 11/12). i'll be continuing with the ayurvedic studies next year, as well as physiology and anatomy. now that the opportunity has come up for further study, i'm considering biochemistry..it seems too interesting to pass up, even though it's not what i had planned initially.

but i'm trying to think clearly about what path i'm heading down. i don't know exactly where the ayurvedic studies are leading me yet. i do want to work as a practitioner for a while. i think my main interest in biochemistry would be along the lines of herbal medicine

i don't know yet if i should work next year and leave the tertiary studies until 2007, if i decide to go ahead with it, because next year will be plenty busy enough already.

any thoughts appreciated

[devance]

Well lab techs are not well paid unless there is a hot field.

Ones wants a good living wage so one could open a herbal store for instance as a self owned business. Plumbing or electrician skills are handy in sustaining oneself as one marrys and pursues a self owned business.

Forensic DNA is a lab speciality that heres to stay and would provide a interesting and comfortable living. Two year.

A master degree involves several years as slave to a PH.D and more years of low income. 5 years.

PH.D 7 years.

Immunology is a interesting field just a matter of interpreting gel electroysis and prepareing Ph solutions.

Masters degree.

I not too familar with the medical demand for such immunology skills but research employment would be too limited.

The time invested in aquiring a lab skill to the prospects of good pay, high demand, and a ability to find employment anywhere onw wants to locate to is the primary consideration for a bread and butter skill.

Then branch out into a business.

Thats the safe route but maybe just plunge in to your herbal interest would be better.

I don't recall college classes in biochemistry that are particularly applicable to herbs as herbs are simply left whole or extracted simply.

[Darklight]

coin:

any thoughts appreciated

Hey coin, I don't know if I can be any direct help with your questions, but from what I know of you, conventional career paths mightn't suit anyhow. Primarily because you have taken extra time to undertake study which is of real interest to you and that you're passionate about- and that's a good thing IMO. Whatever obstacles you were faced with on a path you'd find a way around if you wanted to

Dev is right IMO and a conversation with Rev several years ago yielded the same jist. If you go for a degree you usually can't get much better than a lab tech job, maybe some tutoring ( which pays better ). Often you can get lab tech jobs without a degree, the pay scale doesn't go as high but it's not as disillusioning as studying the million simply brilliant facets of life for 4 years and then going on to repay HECS whilst pipetting sorghum plasmids 8 hours a day as the fruit of your intellectual slog

The other problem is of course once you are paid to research a particular subject, after a while it becomes difficult to find employment on unrelated projects. Not impossible, but competitively difficult. There are many, many boring projects and jobs in all fields, and if, from economic necessity, you've specialised in dryland wheat genomics or whatever for four years, you'll be up against a bit of a challenge if you go for that job you really wanted in soil bioremediation.

And yes, if you're looking at a conventional career ( again IMO ) you won't prolly get much with under a PhD.

But don't let that stop you from starting. With your present knowledge of ayurvedic medicine and your established interest over time in ethnobotany, study in the fields you propose could also be a way to open new lines of enquiry that may provide you with a future and financial independence. You're a smart bloke, I can't imagine you going short on inspiration.

If you get time in there, I'd strongly recommend you do even a brief TAFE small business course, because there is nothing like having a structure in mind once the ideas start to flow. That way you can check if things are economically feasible, properly plan independent projects and generally bridge the gap between a good idea and a weekly wage ( and learn to spot in advance the ideas that stink, of which there are always many )

Good luck with whatever you decide mate and let us know how you go with it

[teonanacatl]

i been doin a bit of biochem at uni, looking to do a little bit more to, i found it very interesting and fun. it was basically remembering a lot of metabolic pathways in high detail. by the sounds of it somthing like pharmacy would better suit your interests. and yeah i reckon doing honors is a minimum, lets people know you can do research. also people looking to hire biochemists dont advertise in the paper (so ive been told) they are likely to offer you a job in your last year of uni or somthing like that(so ive been told). lol.

[devance]

Yeah but being a pharmacist is just a bean counter[pills] with a college degree.

A comfortable life but not intellectuially stimulating.

[MrBumpy]

Devance : it possibly could be if the pharmacy was integrated with an ayurvedic / Naturopathic clinic.

I changed degrees from Naturopathy to a degree in pharmacology, where I had to do biochem and biomed subjects, but found that it really was not what I was interested in doing at all.

-bumpy

[oxydiser]

Hey coin, to reiterate what others have said, it is bloody excellent that you are furthering you studies and it is important that you choose a field that you are deeply passionate about... ultimately the satisfaction you recieve while working in your dream job will be more important than the pay check you bring home. IMO it would be better to continue studying rather than obtaining full time work (or only work for 6 months to save up) as returning to the stress and poverty of full-time study looks increasingly irrelevant after work. To agree with devance and Darklight, a BSc in anything is basically a glorified lab-technician, and in your first job you will be paid as such (speaking from experience here - my first job after 3yr BSc I was being paid the same as a 6 month graduate of a TAFE Dip in Lab Tech).

In order to figure out whether or not you are interested in biochemistry, go to a library and browse through several Biochem textbooks. After completing several 2nd year Biochem units, I found the subject interesting in parts but mostly too tedious for my liking. It is a bit of a mish-mash subject and I found it more interesting studying chemistry and pharmacology which I ultimately majored in. I wish I had spoken to Rev and Darklight before graduating last year as I became throughly disillusioned after 4 months of the lab tech job. I promptly quit that mind-numbing shithole of a job and went back to uni to study towards a MPharm, which btw is twice as hard as the double-major BSc but four times as intersting :D :D

[Darklight]

In spite of everything I've said here I'd also like to add that I really enjoyed my time as a lab tech, and it taught me a helluva lot ( admittedly I was very lucky and had great bosses ) I didn't mean to put down the lab tech job per se, it's just a bastard waste of a degree and a HECS debt to become one, especially if you can get the same job and pay in less time at TAFE, and without the HECS debt

Being a techie gives you an inside look at how projects are ( and frequently shouldn't ) be run, can give you vital industry contacts for supplies, innovations and plant items, teaches you to plan and document in a way that uni courses don't always, and can face you with the implications of slackness or stuffups, poor timing and communication. In short, you can gain the multidimensional thought patterns you need to run your own work on your own time.

Techies are usually nicer than real scientists anyhow

[Fenris]

I majored in Biochem and Biophysics with some molecular biol and micro thrown in for good measure. All interesting and relevant subjects but physics rocks my world the most.

My job prospects in the field were nil, there are very few jobs in Perth as everything seems to be East. It took me 9 months to get a job interview for a job I have little interest in. I always thought I would get some experience and then move on but I can't find anything to move to.

Maybe if I had had the patience for a PHD I would be doing something enjoyable but I have been trying to find a new job for years and I have noticed this; All the jobs are for Engineers or Chemists or Geologists, or do a very specific course that will guarantee a job at the end, eg my partner is studying nuclear medicine and will be a qualified nuke med technologist at the end guaranteeing work in the hospitals. I wish I had studied medical imaging-I thought that the biophysics might lead me there but it lead me to the dole queue instead.

I would rather be earning lots in a job I don't like than earning peanuts in a job I don't like which is currently the case.

Follow the money and the jobs because interesting science can always be a hobby.

Actually I wish I had my own business.

Anyway choose carefully and find out where the jobs and the money are.

I hate the idea of going to work to increase shareholder profit.

Actually happiness is everything as long as there is a roof over you head and food on the table.

[coin]

thanks for all the replies & PM's..

lots of good advice.

it's the organic chemistry that's really caught my attention with the cert 4 science.

as much as the biochem/biotech courses have me interested, as far as i can make out, there'd be nothing worthwhile to move on to, from my perspective, once it's all done. perhaps it will just remain an interest.

first i was hoping for something that would complement the alternative medicine studies, and even if that side of things didn't follow through, i'd still have qualifications and other career possibilities.

i'd thought of studying naturopathy, but most of the courses i've looked at include a good dose of (what i consider) 'nonsense', the practically useless or just plain boring... there are so many dodgy naturopaths out there. i don't know if that's slowly changing with improved curricula, etc. at least i would be doing some basic biochem though

i feel that with the ayurveda course and the extra anatomy and physiology studies i'll be undertaking, this will be more than sufficient to set me up as a half-way decent practitioner (at least in theory) ... but it would be nice to know i had an array of options a few years down the track

in the recesses of my mind is studying ayurveda in india once i've finished this current course (another two years after this one) .. i haven't really looked into those options yet

i'm even considering studying TCM, though i hardly know anything about it. some of the courses i've looked at recently seem really good..with work experience in china. god knows what my ayurvedic teacher would say about that.

[devance]

I always was interested by bioremediation of chemically polluted land.

A matter of raising fungi for surface decontamination or bacteria for subsurface injection into the aquifer.

Fermentation tanks are fast enough for fungi inoculum.

Fermentaton tanks are just a sterile tank with sterile air bubbling through it.

A lab tech could do so as a business.

For a home owner that was unlucky enough to have a contamination problem.

In the U.S they decided to clean up the car emission by adding a oxydizer to the gasoline.

The oxydizer when it leaked from the underground gas petrol tanks contaminanted the ground water because it was soluble in water.

Massive problem now.

In the U.S one can get free title to land if one can decontaminte it but limited to larger business.

Radiation decontamination is a bacteria job as they can convert the radioactive chemicals into a insoluble complex.

I'd want to be paid at least 60 dollars an hour as I would be functioning as the Ph.D and the lowly lab tech as well the iniculum applying grunt.

[Darklight]

devance:

I always was interested by bioremediation of chemically polluted land.

Me too, but that's a whole new field of its own. I bought a really nice book on it 2ndhand, took one look at it and went eeek. For a basics book, having chapters like "Environmental conditions and interactions between species in degradation of chlorinated pollutants " lets you know things will get severely complicated later on

There's more to it than "Fermentaton tanks are just a sterile tank with sterile air bubbling through it". That's almost like saying nuclear medicine is made from an extract of rocks. Strain maintenance and species selection, maybe some mutation for better results- and anyone who has tried to bubble sterile air through any liquid culture over time knows all the attendant hassles of keeping everything sterile while making sure the pump still works- and that's just the start

Soil microflora is amazing! I read an older book a few years ago ( dunno how true it is now ) which stated that we still don't know what a lot of the species were or how they work as many micro-organisms aren't amenable to invitro culture and don't make it isolated out of their living environment- imagine trying to disinfest cultures to exclude other species!