Thinking ahead

[Daniel Kennedy]

Hi, everyone.

 

I just joined this site after seeing some good answers to general questions I have about the years after obtaining a PhD and how I can prepare for them during grad school. Hopefully someone can answer some questions about my specific situation.

 

I am starting my first year in the PhD program in biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley in August and have spent the summer here doing a lab rotation (in addition to 3 rotations in the school year). I'm currently doing work in mass spec and IR spectroscopy and was thinking of using the rest of my rotations to cover the other major biophysical techniques (EM, NMR, X-ray crystallograph, etc) in order to gain a decent understanding of these subfields.

 

My basic question has to do with what I should be doing to prepare for the years after I get my PhD. I would like to find a job in industry as some type of project manager. I don't really want to be a researcher; I'd rather be the guy who coordinates the actions of various researchers and tries to provide some common ground to tie all of their work into a cohesive whole. So, something like a senior scientist position, research group leadership position, or management position in R&D would be good.

 

How can I go about setting myself up to get these types of positions? Should I be talking with people from industry while I'm in grad school? Which biophysical techniques are most useful in industry? Would an MBA be helpful at some point? Also, I am being funded by a national defense fellowship with an employment requirement (national lab or defense contractor) after 5 years; is there a good way to guarantee that I finish my PhD in 5 years? Finally, does anyone know of great labs at Berkeley which emphasize instrumentation and methodology in protein biophysics?

 

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[CharonY]

I will begin with a minor note. While it may be nitpicking, the techniques you mentioned in many cases not considered biophysical methods per se as they have a strong application based background in the area of biology and chemistry. A biophysicist is generally more interested in the means of analyzing something (i.e. the mode of physical interaction) or certain physical properties of the substrate. However, in research and especially in industry these machines have a different use. E.g. to identify a compound or have structural information that may give hints at chemical properties etc. In other words, I would emphasize the application aspects of these techniques rather than the physical aspects. The distinction is not clear cut, of course, but in industry MS or NMRs are more often than not in the hands of (bio-)chemists and biologists. Biophysicists tend to be still rather rare (though not unknown).

 

To give an example, I know biophysics graduate students who know a lot about AFM and have spent several years measuring forces on viral particles. However they still do not know what the host range of a virus is. Quite obviously this would not be very helpful if you intend to lead a project group that is supposed to develop vaccines.

 

Now about getting an industry position. For entry a MBA is often not that helpful, especially given the positions that you describe.

If you start, typical research related entry positions (ie not sales or similiar) are application specialists or a project manager. You will not start with a group in all positions (depending on company). And if you do you usually have one or several technicians (or equivalents) but rarely a team of scientists. As a fresh PhD you obviously will not start with managing scientists right off the bat. The most important bit, however, is as you already surmised, is to start getting contacts as soon as possible.

You can e.g. arrange an internship with one of the companies you are interested in (depending on how and who pays you during your PhD it may not be possible). Whatever the case might be, you should apply for an industrial position shortly before you expect to get your PhD and if you do not score anything you can still go for a an industrial postdoc. Avoid an academic postdoc, though!

 

Regarding techniques, it really depends. From the list you have given the MS is probably most likely used to identify, quantify and characterize (bio-) molecules. In many more or less straightforward production processes simple HPLC is used as quality control instead, though. In the end you should be asking yourself what kind of industrial position you seek. Then you can ask what skills you require.

I am pretty sure that GDG and a few others can give you much more insight, though.

 

Sorry for errors and inconsistencies, but I am typing in a hurry.