One of my friends, a former community college student at the school at the same time I was working there, has decided to go into biotech research. She is technologically savvy and at the same time is fascinated with and good at working with the environment, and hopes to make some important contributions to our area (Northern California). So what does it mean to do biotech research? What does it take to get into the field of biotechnology? And how much dough can you make?
Biotech research can involve anything in the life sciences, from “human health and computational disease mapping to crop and tree improvements,” as those studies are done by students at the Biotech Research Center at Michigan Tech, from “forensics, [the] testing of biotoxins, and management of the nation’s organ transplantation process” to “drug development, medical diagnostics, biomedical engineering, and environmental analysis,” such as those done at Virginia Biotechnology Research Park, or from biogenetic engineering, farming, or nutritional assessment and engineering to toxicology, biomedical imaging and engineering, or food, drug, and environmental technologies, as conducted by University of California Biotechnology Research and Education Program (UC BREP).
How much a person in biotech research makes depends on what funding the biotech research facilities are backed by. At the Biotech Research Center at Michigan Tech, for instance, funding is at $8.3 million, provided by such organizations as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Drug Administration (USDA). At the same time, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the biotech research engineer (as well as the biomedical engineer) make an average of $48,503 with a bachelor’s degree and around $59,667 with a master’s degree.
But will the jobs in biotech research be there when my friend and you finish your degrees? Well, again according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the projection for job growth in the field of biotech research in particular but biotechnological engineering in general looks good through 2014, with the growth “much faster than average. This, BLS asserts, will be attributed to the aging of the population, the increased focus on health issues, and the demand for “better medical biomedical engineers.” Because of the heightened interest in biotech research and biomedicine, more degrees are granted in these fields/areas…and hopefully, more grants are awarded!
