Switch the career after PhD
Posted by tayyibnaseem, on 16 October 2017
Dear Colleagues,
I am PhD graduate in Biotechnology focusing on Insect Molecular Biology and Plant Virology. After completion of my PhD in Agriculture sector, I would like to switch my career to medical sciences or advance biotech tools like studies in stem cells, or CRISPR.
Should I repeat PhD in medical sciences or is there a possibility to get job or postdoc in the health sector with the same qualification?
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Hi Muhammad,
Thank you for your post, I would suggest asking this question to the scientific twitter community with the hashtag #phdchat
Thanks,
Sarah
Hello tayyibnaseem,
This is a great question, and one I’ve actually had to look into for myself. I recently made the transition from doing stem cell research to cancer research, and it was not easy, but I did make it work! What I ended up doing was looking for a lab that did cancer research, and was also interested in getting into stem cell research. They’re now using my stem cell expertise and I’m getting to do cancer research.
Similarly for your situation, I’d recommend thinking about how your background can, in any way, be related to the areas you want to study — are there molecular biology mechanisms, or plant virology areas, that you studied that are at all related to the medical/stem cell or biotech fields? What connections/overlaps are there? Try to find some — it may narrow you down to a few specific areas of research. Then try to find labs (or companies) that do the research that overlaps with your background. In my experience, professors are more receptive if you explain why you want to change fields, and why you’re excited about their research, instead of just ignoring the fact that you are changing fields.
Hope this helps!
Teisha Rowland