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It’s all in the Genes
It's not exactly cocktail-party chatter, but female endocrinology is something molecular biology researcher Monica Venere is eager to discuss. "The woman's reproductive system is like a symphony, because it is so precise and orchestrated," Venere says.
Clues that she would pursue a career in science emerged when she received rock-growing kits and barometers as birthday presents as a child. At George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Venere majored in biology and earned a minor in English, which she says made for a good mixture of coursework. After graduation, Venere received a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C. For the past few years, she has worked on a portion of a research project that uses molecular biology techniques to study a gene that occasionally produces breast tumors in women and men.
Venere calls her research and projects just part of the bigger picture of finding breast cancer's causes. "The more you understand about cancer, the better you can fight it," she says. The team working on the breast-cancer project includes lab technicians who conduct experiments, specially funded researchers, such as Venere, and a primary investigator (PI), who originated the idea.
Donned in a lab coat and gloves, Venere does experiments then reports the results to the project's PI. A typical day at the lab is a nine-to-five job, though the experiment's length can dictate a researcher's hours. It's not up to humans to control the length of time needed for each test; one test might take two hours while another takes 20. "Basically, you're fighting Mother Nature to do these experiments," Venere says.
Venere also regularly stops by the lab on weekends, or she works into the evening to check on the progress of her tests. "There's no guarantee that what you've spent a 12-hour day or even a month doing will work out," she says. "If you don't have patience, then this isn't the field for you."
An undergraduate degree is a prerequisite to work in a biomedical lab. Often, labs also require their researchers to have a master's degree in biology. Those with doctorate or mater’s degrees hold senior-level positions. Researchers with medicine degrees are able to collect samples, such as blood, from patients. After completing advanced degrees, researchers usually take on post-doctorate fellowships at universities or government laboratories, where they continue their research and publish their results. "It's at the post-doc level that you hone in on what research area will dominate your career," Venere says. "This can be completely different from what you did your graduate dissertation on."
Biomedical researchers work for universities, government organizations, such as the NIH, or privately owned pharmaceutical companies. Venere says post-doctorate work salaries start around $20,000 to $22,000 U.S. At the government level, researchers can start at a salary of $40,000 U.S. University researchers can earn $35,000 U.S. to start. Though you can make substantially more money working in private industry, your company can control your research and choose your projects.
"In academia, you can devote your life to researching one thing," Venere says. "But at drug companies, they typically give you three years to run experiments, and if the results are unsuccessful, then they place you on a new project."
Publishing your findings is an important part of the biomedical researcher's job. Researchers write articles for all sorts of journals and magazines, but Venere says that if you can publish an article in Nature, Cell, or Science magazines, you've hit the pinnacle of publishing.
To get started in your medical-researching career, Venere suggests taking as many science classes in high school as possible, and ask your teacher for an independent project from which you can learn the scientific process. Also, attend a college with a research facility. "If the program you are interested in receives NIH funding, then you'll know they are committed to research," Venere says.
Consider joining organizations such as the Endocrinology Society, or a pre-medicine college club. Each medical discipline has its own society through which you can learn more about the latest research. Read magazines and journals, such as Nature, Cell, and Science. For more accessible publications, try Scientific American and Science News. These magazines introduce readers to specialized scientific writing. The research that appears most in the news, as well as the most booming field, is in the area of genetic research. Heart disease, cancer, HIV and AIDS are also areas that receive major funding.
"Question the articles' findings," Venere says. "Don't take every publication as gospel." Try to work in a hospital or lab during the summers, and apply for internships. NIH offers summer internships to high-school and college students, and they encourage applicants to apply through their website. As with most scientific fields formerly dominated by men, biomedical research is rapidly becoming a more diverse field.
Venere says that there are several funding sources that are available just for women and minorities. NIH has a scholarship specifically for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, regardless of their sex or race.
Venere entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania in fall 2000 to study molecular cancer. She anticipates it will take five years to complete her degree, after which she'll continue her research in a post-doctorate position at a university or government-owned laboratory.
Venere offers one last piece of advice: take at least a year off between degrees. Working full time in a lab can boost your chances of getting into a top school. "The Ph.D. is a long road, and you need to know that you have the passion to pull it off," Venere says. On the other hand, few professions offer such unique rewards. "When you enter a lab, you have the chance to see something no one else has ever seen before," she says.
Learn more about biomedical research from these Web sites:
www.nih.gov Look under "employment opportunities" to learn more about the National Institutes of Health internship program.
www.nature.com Nature, a science journal, is published weekly.
www.cell.com Cell magazine
www.sciencemag.org Science magazine
www.sciam.com Scientific American magazine
www.endo-society.org The Endocrinology Society's Web site Article provided by 
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