14 ms·

Biomedical superstars are signing on with Google

70 points by adenadel 11y ago

Kristine1975 11y ago
>Nurtured by Google’s expertise in data analytics and engineering, the biology team is expected to create miniaturized electronic devices and to use these and other means to collect and analyse more health data, more continuously, than is possible today. I can't wait for the personalized ads...
- mtgx 11y ago
  Personalized as in you'll "suddenly" feel the urge to buy that new 4K TV you've always thought was too expensive before, as you pass by it.
cryoshon 11y ago
I knew a person from my previous laboratory who left academia to work on some secret GoogleX project. "Superstar" fits their bill, to be sure. Coldest person I've ever met, but whatever. Exceptional scientist. My hunch is that Google has a oncology/immunology platform which they're not talking about but trying to actively develop in order to help fuel Calico's pipeline and maybe sell off some other generated IP. There's almost certainly a "big data" angle as well, potentially describing the polymorphisms in majorhistocompatability (MHC) molecules between people. Having a large dataset of this kind of information would provide a lot of predictive power for infectious disease resistance and also disease progression. Google is new to this space and enjoys young talent, so I can tell that their approach will be to hire the people graduating from the top biomedical PhD programs. This is a hiring market that they can easily dominate by offering salaries of 50k-90k, though they may bump this range up to ensure loyalty. Nobody else will offer a better game in town to fresh PhDs in the current (extremely hostile benefits-wise) science employment environment. Google gets in on the ground level, and the fresh PhDs avoid wasting 5 years on their postdoc-ing. Once the platform is established using the young talent, Google will spend a lot of money bringing in older mid-level people from prestigious organizations to mainstream-ize development and provide more credibility.
- samstave 11y ago
  Recall the article in {Wired?} from a few years ago where either Larry or Sergei had discovered they were genetically predisposed to some disease and had committed to finding a cure to it... Perhaps this is the evolution of that effort...
- devilsdounut 11y ago
  Not sure 50k-90k for PhDs from top programs is really the case anymore. Companies hiring for data-science type jobs have always been pulling from the pool of quantitative PhDs, and as a result the pharma/genomics companies have been forced to raise salaries. Pure bench scientists would potentially have that kind of range, but anything quantitative is going to be much higher. This being said, there is a huge gap between those purely experimental scientists and the quantitative ones who have many non-science options.
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    Just going off of Novartis as a reference. I'd certainly agree with what you said regarding quantitative vs experimental scientist salaries, though.
  - adenadel 11y ago
    I think that the comparison is towards the alternative path in academia. For example, I completed a master's degree and got an internship doing bioinformatics as part of the degree. My pay during the internship was more than one of my instructors (who had a PhD in CS and was a postdoc in a biology lab doing genomic research).
- rch 11y ago
  I was in a research environment that shared proceeds on commercialized IP, such that the biggest share of royalties would go to the institution, then the lab, then the individual. That's much different than working for a corporation that will own everything outright.
  - petra 11y ago

70 points by adenadel 11y ago

Kristine1975 11y ago

>Nurtured by Google’s expertise in data analytics and engineering, the biology team is expected to create miniaturized electronic devices and to use these and other means to collect and analyse more health data, more continuously, than is possible today. I can't wait for the personalized ads...

mtgx 11y ago
Personalized as in you'll "suddenly" feel the urge to buy that new 4K TV you've always thought was too expensive before, as you pass by it.

cryoshon 11y ago

I knew a person from my previous laboratory who left academia to work on some secret GoogleX project. "Superstar" fits their bill, to be sure. Coldest person I've ever met, but whatever. Exceptional scientist. My hunch is that Google has a oncology/immunology platform which they're not talking about but trying to actively develop in order to help fuel Calico's pipeline and maybe sell off some other generated IP. There's almost certainly a "big data" angle as well, potentially describing the polymorphisms in majorhistocompatability (MHC) molecules between people. Having a large dataset of this kind of information would provide a lot of predictive power for infectious disease resistance and also disease progression. Google is new to this space and enjoys young talent, so I can tell that their approach will be to hire the people graduating from the top biomedical PhD programs. This is a hiring market that they can easily dominate by offering salaries of 50k-90k, though they may bump this range up to ensure loyalty. Nobody else will offer a better game in town to fresh PhDs in the current (extremely hostile benefits-wise) science employment environment. Google gets in on the ground level, and the fresh PhDs avoid wasting 5 years on their postdoc-ing. Once the platform is established using the young talent, Google will spend a lot of money bringing in older mid-level people from prestigious organizations to mainstream-ize development and provide more credibility.

samstave 11y ago
Recall the article in {Wired?} from a few years ago where either Larry or Sergei had discovered they were genetically predisposed to some disease and had committed to finding a cure to it... Perhaps this is the evolution of that effort...
devilsdounut 11y ago
Not sure 50k-90k for PhDs from top programs is really the case anymore. Companies hiring for data-science type jobs have always been pulling from the pool of quantitative PhDs, and as a result the pharma/genomics companies have been forced to raise salaries. Pure bench scientists would potentially have that kind of range, but anything quantitative is going to be much higher. This being said, there is a huge gap between those purely experimental scientists and the quantitative ones who have many non-science options.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Just going off of Novartis as a reference. I'd certainly agree with what you said regarding quantitative vs experimental scientist salaries, though.
- adenadel 11y ago
  I think that the comparison is towards the alternative path in academia. For example, I completed a master's degree and got an internship doing bioinformatics as part of the degree. My pay during the internship was more than one of my instructors (who had a PhD in CS and was a postdoc in a biology lab doing genomic research).
rch 11y ago
I was in a research environment that shared proceeds on commercialized IP, such that the biggest share of royalties would go to the institution, then the lab, then the individual. That's much different than working for a corporation that will own everything outright.
- petra 11y ago