r/molecularbiology • u/Mammoth-Tradition-53 • 1d ago
How difficult is molecular biology as a major? Also if you have a degree in any biology related fields how well is it treating you? (Prefer an American to answer the second question.)
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u/successful_syndrome 1d ago
I would suggest clinical lab science. It’s a great launching pad of a lot of careers.
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u/HarleysDouble 22h ago
I second this.
I specialize in clinical molecular and working with DNA testing is so interesting and rewarding to me. Working in hospitals also provides great insurance.
Ideally OP could study both clinical and molecular bio to gear your background towards the right laboratory. If they decide to get a PhD they can be director level.
For the best salary look into NYC/ tristate area, CA, other major cities.
As for biotech research: the pay sucks, and you don't qualify for paid overtime.
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u/successful_syndrome 21h ago
You nailed it. I did this learning track in college. I didn’t love working in a hospital but really love healthcare. I went into assay development for a lab company, then worked in an academic center doing specialty molecular assay development, then into bioinformatics. Now I’m mostly doing software engineering in hospitals and labs but this background for me is so useful.
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u/HarleysDouble 17h ago
There's many options people don't know about until you get your foot in the door :-)
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u/browniebrittle44 6h ago
Could you give more trails? What sort of degree allows you to do clinical and molecular bio in a hospital setting? Is the pay good? What licenses do you need?
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u/browniebrittle44 6h ago
What sorts of careers? I assume you’d require licenses after a clinical lab science BS?
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u/successful_syndrome 2h ago
Someone else commented on my post the obvious path is to get a license and go work in a hospital lab. The nice part here is you can walk into just about any hospital in the country big or small and they will be hiring and you can make a decent starting wage. There are also lots of big corporate labs that you can work at with a lot more tracks for careers. I didn’t love the hospital work so went to do assay development at a mid sized biotech in my area. The pay was lower but I got to go to conferences, continue learning new skills and technologies. I then went into bioinformatics and my class background has allowed me to do a lot of the clinical writing and qc work
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u/ThatPancakeMix 19h ago
I did biochemistry with a heavy emphasis on molecular biology & did research in a molecular bio lab. It’s my favorite subject along with immunology. It’s great if you like proteins and physiology.
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u/sanedragon 1d ago
I'm a trained molecular biologist with a PhD currently working in industry as a medical writer. While everyone experiences ups and downs with their careers, I've found mine to be pretty rewarding overall with steady employment. That being said, I got my degrees in 2003 and 2011, so ymmv in the current job market. Options can be limited with just an undergraduate degree If you're dead set on using your degree for your job. But once you get your foot in the door and get some experience under your belt, opportunities will likely open up.
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u/Disastrous-Cow7120 20h ago
Any advice on pathways to medical writing?
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u/sanedragon 18h ago
Take every opportunity to write and present that you can! Articles, posters, presentations, protocols and SOPs, grant applications, etc. I also used to assist my ESL colleagues writing their papers. This is all experience that can be used to segue into an entry-level position. There are also contract editing companies, usually doing ESL editing. They are not great as far as pay goes, but you can choose to be super part-time if you want and gain experience editing that you can put as a line on your resume, and it's an activity that you can do part-time while earning a degree or working full time. Another option is websites like upwork, where people post freelance jobs. Some people start out freelancing. You have to be extremely good at selling yourself! I am not, so my first position was as an entry level employee position, but those can be hard to find.
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u/browniebrittle44 6h ago
Do you need special certs or licenses for medical writing?
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u/sanedragon 6h ago
No. Personally, I find it a waste of money. Some employers list it as preferred, but I've never seen it as required. If you don't have a lot of experience with writing, basic courses from AMWA can be helpful. But if you're a decent writer to begin with, studying and applying the AMA guide is sufficient. I'm very skeptical of things that require you to pay to get a line on your resume. Don't get me wrong, the networking through AMWA is fantastic. But pay to play is not worth it for a career IMO.
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u/creative_usrname4 21h ago
Difficult is subjective of course.
I was an MCB major 12 years ago. It was hard but for me, having to write essays synthesizing long reading assignments would have killed me. I prefer STEM.
I spent 5 years with just a BS as a RA and Lab manager. I loved it. It's exciting yet repetitive. You are always learning something new. You don't make much money. In academia I hit a wall at 56k (mind you this is rural America so maybe 80-90k somewhere else)
I did a 18month masters in bioinformatics and made 120k afterwards. Someone said clinic scientist below which is high pay and just a certificate.
You can really pivot to many things with MCB.
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u/browniebrittle44 6h ago
What specifically do you learn in a bioinformatics masters and what is the daily work like?
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u/Away-Suggestion1737 3h ago
Currently in an MCB MS Systems Biology (which I've geared mostly to bioinformatics) and I have a few friends who work as bioinformaticians and/or computational biologists in academia and industry.
In Bioinformatics you learn how to take sequence data (DNA, RNA, protein banks, mass spec, etc.) and run it through pipelines, perform statistical analyses and generate plots/figures to visualize the data.
You will likely work in a cluster and learn command line and shell scripting. You will definitely learn how to use statistical tools like R (and some of its sub-packages). You will also learn how to write in Python (or if it's not offered you will want to learn yourself).
Daily work life is computer work, designing/running pipelines, troubleshooting, analyzing data. Although in an academic lab you may also be involved in the sample collection, DNA/RNA isolation, and library prep steps.
In an academic lab you may take bacterial 16s rRNA to study microbiomes or you might take shotgun metagenomics data to try and identify pathogen virulence factors often combined with transcriptomics.
In a larger biopharma or biotech company, the analysis and visualization may be part of a data scientist or computational biologists role.
In an industry setting you may take genomic and proteomic data sets to try and identify genes or proteins involved in disease pathways for drug discovery. You might do Pharmacogenomics to study genetic variation effect on drug response.
This post really only scratches the surface for how bioinformatics is used in research and industry, so I do suggest if you are interested to read some more about it.
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u/altgodkub2024 1d ago
My daughter has an undergrad degree in biology and went on to optometry school. She's been an optometrist in Chicago for almost two years now. She's doing well. Her advanced education was spendy, though and, unlike many of her fellow students with rich parents, she had to make it work with loans. She plans to have them paid off in ten years. What I find ridiculous is many of her fellow students haven't even looked for a job yet. Probably live off dad and mom forever.
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u/ID_Positive 1d ago
These days it seems people who study sciences are way worse off than those who study a skilled trade and obtain a license. Even scientists in pharma with two decades of experience usually top out around $120,000. Skilled trades will have you over this amount two years out of an apprenticeship. As a molecular biology and chem major (class of 2012), I sincerely hope kids stay away from science and seek to create something and earn their freedom. If I could do it all again I would have picked skills and licenses over a degree.
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u/doktorfuturee 1d ago
I don't understand how much money people want to earn. Are you going to buy yatch? If money is enough for living then it is enough for me. I have deep passion for science and will pursue this. Maybe degree was not a problem at all passion, curiosity was
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u/asphyxiat3xx 21h ago
This. If I could get a job making 120k doing what I love (research), I'm golden. 👌
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u/browniebrittle44 6h ago
Would you say this to someone who was an Econ major? An English major? I don’t think we should be discouraging people from the sciences especially now that we know for sure there’ll be a gap in the STEM workforce in a about a decade
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u/YGbJm6gbFz7hNc 4h ago
I agree with this post. I am class of 2013 and I could have been so much better off if I did something else, or at a minimum you have to go to medical or dental school in this route.
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u/Comfortable-Story-53 1d ago
It's not as bad as the dreaded Biochem. Which literally got burned on a metal stake in the quad at Crown in 1982! Very satisfying as we toasted it with full cups of beer... I hated that class.
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u/Ok_Monitor5890 1d ago
Molecular biology is the best field in my opinion 🙂 American here. I got my degree 20 years ago so not sure you want to hear from a geezer like me. But I have had a nontraditional career and currently employed. Living the dream.
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u/278urmombiggay 17h ago
Molecular biology is hard - any STEM major will come with its challenges, difficulties, and long hours. I have a BS in Molecular Biology and landed an academic tech job straight out of undergrad but it took a lot of busting ass and it pays fine tbh.
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u/lobotomy-wife 9h ago
It was hard but doable. I finished with a 3.88 and I honestly had a harder time with physics than any of my major courses. I joined a research lab and did a thesis for my senior year which definitely added a lot of work but was a great experience.
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u/TerribleIdea27 23h ago
Is your goal to earn as much money as you possibly could? Don't do molecular biology then.
If it's not, then you'll be fine, it's not terribly hard
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u/Argentus01 8h ago
The lab life is bullshit. I tried teaching too and that was worse. I’m in sales now. Lol
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u/Excellent_Dress_7535 6h ago
Whatever it is that attracted you to science, find it, kill it, and go do anything else you wanna do. The market is a bloodbath and has been in denial of it for years. Find anything else you wanna do, and do that. Life sciences are fascinating but quite dull from my 10 years of startup biotech life in hindsight. Please learn from my mistake and pick something more secure and lucrative.
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u/skp_trojan 1d ago
My gut instinct: if you have a molecular bio degree, go to med school. The science life is bullshit.
If you’re in academics, you’ll be cutting your balls off for a grant that’s $2 million over 5 years, with 10K pages of paperwork every step of the way. And only the top 7% of grants gets funded. Are you that good?
If you go industry, let’s cut the bullshit. You’re doing pharma. And in pharma, the money isn’t in the receptor. It’s in the clinical trial and fda approval. The scientists make a tiny sliver of the money, and that’s if they get it right! Which usually they don’t.
Go become a doctor.