r/biotech•
Biochem_slave

Career advice for PhD student

I've been following this group for a while and this is my first time posting a question. I am in the final semester of the PhD and thinking about direction for the future. My background is in biochemistry. I have experience in purifying protein from different organism for structural works in ranking from bacteria> insect cell > mammalian cell (mostly small scale for assay). I did some in vitro assay on protein and RNA activity relating to radioactive labelling, cleavage assay, binding assay,.... I am in the mid-30s now, so I know that I don't have much time to wander around. At the end, I know that I would like to have a stable job either in industry or in academia as a staff scientist. I would like to have a job that I am able to use my protein purification skills, but also have opportunity to learn new things/new techniques (I'm really want to learn more about antibody purification, antibody engineering, mammalian cell engineering), getting promotion,.... Thus, there are two options that I am thinking of now

  1. Apply for a job/postdoc in industry that is focused on protein science and hope that I'll have opportunity to learn new techniques, new systems about antibody, mammalian cell engineering. Do you think that in industry, we can still learn new techniques? Without background in antibody, do you think I am able to get a job in that field? I know I don't have much experience, but I'm willing to learn and do research.

  2. Apply for postdoc in structural biology using cryo-EM. I have experience with purifying protein for structural works and know how to examine structure with PyMOL, ChimeraX (I'm from a structural lab, but I did not have opportunity to solve a structure since my project is focused mostly on functional characterization with in vitro assay).Do you know about the career prospect for cryo-EM researcher/structural biology with cryo-EM experience? Is it worth spending 2-4 years more to learn cryo-EM and switch to industry?

Please correct me if I am wrong but the reason I'm having two options is that for option 1, I feel like the learning curve for protein purification skill is not so steep and so you are "easy to be replaceable", for option 2, this is not an easy skill to pick up and may be will increase the opportunity to get/retain the job?

Thank you very much for your input.

Posted Dec 17, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

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