Working in Drug Discovery Research

Courtesy Eli Lilly and Co.

Kevin Tichenor (left) and Chahrzad Montrose (right) dissolve compounds and place them in various plate formats required for biological screeing.

Life science researchers may think that the most viable career opportunities lie in academia or other nonprofit settings. For scientists who are drawn to an intensive research environment, however, the pharmaceutical industry offers another option. While focused on high-quality research just like academia, the drug discovery industry holds a wide range of research opportunities and varied tracks for career advancement, depending on individual scientists' goals, talents, and needs. At both the basic and applied research levels, pharmaceutical companies have ongoing needs for biochemists, organic chemists, cellular biologists, molecular biologists, microbiologists, genetic biologists, and in vivo pharmacists.

After six years in postdoctoral appointments focusing on bacterial pathogenesis, an offer to join the field of bacterial genomics presented Richard Alm with an intriguing prospect. That it would...