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Young scientists ditch postdocs for biotech startups
- themantalope 10y agoNot surprising at all, considering how insanely competitive academic biology is today.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoActually, still kinda surprising given how crappy the salaries and working conditions can be in industrial biotechnology. Someone I'm close to worked in biotech and found that they consistently had 80-hour workweeks, were constantly asked to work weekends and holidays, and all for just $40k/year.
- jhbadger 10y agoThis sort of thing isn't new though, although every generation seems to forget the experiences of the past. The first wave of biotech startups was in the 1970s -- most of them failed with the main survivor being Genentech. It's not unlike how waves of Internet startups come and go. At times academia is the place to be, then industry, then academia again.
- swingbridge 10y agoAcademia has long used post-docs as sources of cheap labor. Good for them for finding a strong path into greener pastures in the private sector. These things go in cycles, but right now I sense a strong desire to get out of the mess that is often found in academic science.
- coldcode 10y agoWhile it makes a lot of sense for individuals, science in the end will suffer since only potentially profitable studies will be made and basic research abandoned. Of course that might happen anyway in today's publish or perish climate and universities in profit seeking mode.
- rubidium 10y agoBasic science is doing fine. The issue is the glut of PhD's. See graph here: http://futureoflife.org/2015/11/05/90-of-all-the-scientists-that-ever-lived-are-alive-today/ http://futureoflife.org/2015/11/05/90-of-all-the-scientists-...
- chasely 10y agoAgree with you. I am finishing up my PhD, and while I am glad I am not planning on pursuing academia further, I have met many wonderful scientists that are driven to continue furthering their science.
- throwaway98237 10y agoDo we want the fruits of scientific progress to be made publicly available and shared by all of society (one must grant that even public universities have already begun privatizing their work, which is sad) or for it to end up privatized as part of patent portfolios to go to the highest bidder and to serve those with the most capital? I already know what the answer is if we look at the current incentives in place, but what do we want?
- wolfgke 10y ago> Do we want the fruits of scientific progress to be made publicly available and shared by all of society [...] or for it to end up privatized as part of patent portfolios to go to the highest bidder and to serve those with the most capital? Of course the former - but only as long as I can live from doing the research. As the German writer Bertolt Brecht put it in Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera): "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral." ("Grub first, then ethics.").
- throwaway98237 10y agoIn a capitalist society one can receive grub for work on ethics. We need, as a society, to decide that it's worth investing in ethics, in basic research, etc, rather than trusting that market incentives will trickle out of these companies.
- paaloaalto 10y agoWhich biotech startup is the hottest around?