It is basically impossible to do life sciences research outside of an academic or industry lab, and almost no academic lab will take on someone who is not a stu

It is basically impossible to do life sciences research outside of an academic or industry lab, and almost no academic lab will take on someone who is not a student or post-doc. An individual outside of academia would be unable to purchase supplies due to supplier restrictions, would lack access to journals without piracy, would have no access to expensive required analytical equipment, and would be unable to front the costs associated with regulatory compliance in a lab setting. While it's true that progress can be made from a simulation stand point, licenses to these software packages are enormously expensive. Without a university appointment or a well established track record, no one is going to be willing to share clinical data with you. Moreover, without any ability to validate the findings from your simulations in a lab / clinical setting, any results would be of questionable value. Most importantly, it would be extremely difficult for an individual not associated with a university or industry lab to publish their results in a top tier journal.