What Premed Students Should Know About Emerging Fields of Medical Research

Aspiring physician-scientists should bone up on areas such as gene editing, nanotechnology and regenerative medicine.





Premedical students aspiring to become physician-scientists will be tasked with navigating emerging fields in research and translating exciting discoveries into the clinical realm. Understanding the latest trends and breakthroughs in biomedical science is paramount for those hoping to bridge the gap between such cutting-edge research and clinical practice – a career goal for many aspiring physician-scientists.

What are these emerging fields, what should aspiring physician-scientists – including those applying to combined M.D.-Ph.D. programs – know about getting involved in these fields, and are there any pitfalls?

This is an extraordinarily exciting time in scientific research, with recent breakthroughs in diverse fields such as gene editing, immunotherapies, nanotechnology, precision medicine, machine learning and regenerative medicine. Highlights run the gamut of the biomedical spectrum, including evolutionary genomics, novel neurotechnology, advances in cardiovascular imaging, cell-based therapies and therapeutic manipulation of the microbiome, to name a few.


Aspiring physician-scientists will undoubtedly be tempted to ride this wave of exciting discoveries and join laboratories moving the needle in these fields, many of which are still in their infancy.


Premed students should be aware of these emerging fields, as these advances are expected to contribute increasingly to health care throughout the coming decades and will undoubtedly remain important for the duration of a lengthy career in medicine.

Related: Premed Research That Impresses Medical Schools

These fields are likely to hold long-term career opportunities for students interested in biomedical research. They also represent opportunities to contribute to innovation, be involved in groundbreaking discoveries and help shape the future of science and medicine.

Many emerging fields are exciting in part due to new or newly appreciated applications to clinical practice, with direct implications for patient care. By understanding these emerging fields, premed students will remain informed and up to date regarding novel treatment paradigms, new diagnostic tools and different preventive strategies that could benefit their future patients.

Students’ research interests often evolve during undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate education. Many fascinating fields of biomedical science are neither new nor well known, and they deserve serious consideration. You will have multiple opportunities to change fields should your interests diverge at any point, so you should not feel locked in to the discipline of your first research experience.

However, if you do have a genuine intellectual interest in a popular scientific field at an early phase of training, don’t hesitate to join such a like-minded laboratory.

Finding a Laboratory in Emerging Research Fields

If you are a premed student interested in an exciting field like cancer immunotherapy, genomics, AI-enabled precision medicine, etc., you may struggle to understand which laboratories would be appropriate and rewarding to join and a good fit for your career goals.

To start, assess the research landscape at your home institution through departmental web pages and note which faculty in your field of interest are involved in active research projects. Get in touch with a few faculty members and discuss the possibility of joining their laboratory.

Read: Primary Care vs. Research: Which Med School Is Right for You?

As you learn about their research projects, you can also ask if they know of other labs in the same field that may also be of interest. Often, research faculty themselves are the best resource for understanding the current research landscape of the university, as departmental web pages and related resources can be out of date.

Departmental administrators or undergraduate research coordinators may also be quite helpful in finding a lab in a specific area that would be a good fit for an undergraduate student. If you read a lay press article – especially from a local publication – about an area of exciting, “hot” science, pay attention to which studies and researchers they reference or quote. These investigators are often leading voices in the field.

Use PubMed to find the latest work in a field or by a specific investigator. Explore the "trending articles" section to see which articles have had recent activity – a sign of a field gaining broad interest. If you find investigators doing work that is particularly interesting to you, use the "saved searches" function to get updates about their work directly in your email inbox.

Appreciate that emerging fields are often a result of novel collaboration across disparate disciplines such as distinct subfields in biology and medicine, biomedical engineering or computer science.

Application of a known technology to a new field can also yield exciting advancements. A recent example is cryo-EM-mediated determination of complex structures, such as ligand-bound receptors, which could not previously be accurately determined.

Look for labs that are working in an interdisciplinary manner to tackle an important question in medicine or biology, and you are likely to find stimulating research in an important emerging field.

Website: International Research Scientist Awards


#Professor, #Lecturer, #Scientist, #Scholar, #Researcher, #Analyst, #Engineer, #Technician, #Coordinator, #Specialist, #Writer, #Assistant, #Associate, #Biologist, #Chemist, #Physicist, #Statistician, #DataScientist, #Consultant, #Coordinator, #ResearchScientist, #SeniorScientist, #JuniorScientist, #PostdoctoralResearcher, #LabTechnician, #ResearchCoordinator, #PrincipalInvestigator, #ClinicalResearchCoordinator, #GrantWriter, #R&DManager, #PolicyAnalyst, #TechnicalWriter, #MarketResearchAnalyst, #EnvironmentalScientist, #SocialScientist, #EconomicResearcher, #PublicHealthResearcher, #Anthropologist, #Ecologist


More Details:



Tilte: International Research Scientist Awards

website: researchscientist.net

Visit Our Award nomination: researchscientist.net/award-nomina...

For Enquires : research@researchscientist.net


Get Connected Here;

--------------------------

--------------------------

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61...

www.instagram.com/researchscientist8/?next=%2F

x.com/scientistaward

in.pinterest.com/ResearchScientist...

www.blogger.com/profile/0625116998...

www.tumblr.com/blog/researchscient...





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The research ranks are faculty positions for those who are advancing science within a laboratory or research group at Yale School of Medicine.

Researchers discover a surprising way to jump-start battery performance

Your Guide to Becoming a Successful Research Scientist 2024!