Background Requirements For A Career In Biotechnology

If you’re seeking a career in biotechnology, one thing is for certain ... the more education you have, the higher up you can go. The fact is, no matter where you wind up working, you will be surrounded by people with Ph.D.'s and medical degrees. It is highly unlikely that an individual without an advanced degree such as these will get to the top of the corporate chain.

Therefore a bachelor's degree in the life sciences is a bare minimum. After that, it is recommended that you pursue an advanced degree; whether it be a master's degree or higher. Common degrees include; molecular biology, cell physiology, biochemistry, genetics and the like.

You should plan to take as many labs in college as possible as these will provide you with hands-on experience. Teaching as a student-teacher is also a wise move, as is becoming a part of a research project. It is possible to co-author a quality research paper before you ever even graduate with a bachelor's degree.

Biotechnologists frequently gain employment for biotech corporations. Over the last two decades, thousands of biotech corporations have sprung up around the globe. From start-ups to companies the size of Amgen, the choices range from pay to research to prestige.

Employment in the biotech industry may also be sought in academic institutes; such as universities and non-profit organizations. These typically pay less than biotech corporations, but may have more opportunities for independent research.

As a biotechnologist, you will spend most of your work hours in a laboratory. The work can be tedious and requires patience, but many truly enjoy working with their hands. You will design and carry out experiments and will need to keep good records.

The best biotechnologists enjoy innovation and the spirit of helping to advance society. If you choose biotechnology as a career, you can expect to be right on the cutting edge of technology.

What Is A Career In Biotechnology Like?

Biotechnology is the integration of engineering and technology to the life sciences.

Biotechnologists frequently use microorganisms or biological substances to perform specific processes or for manufacturing. Examples include the production of drugs, hormones, foods and converting waste products.

There are many sub-branches involved in the biotech industry. A few of the more common branches include; molecular biology, genetic engineering, and cell biology.

A new and exciting sub-branch requiring biotechnologists is the field of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology gives us the capability to engineer the tiniest of objects, things at the molecular level. Nano means a billionth of a specific unit in Greek. Nanotechnology includes the study and manipulation of materials between 1 and 100 nanometers.

To give you an idea, DNA is approximately 2.5 nanometers. Red blood cells are 2.5 micrometers (1,000 times larger). And a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick!

As you can imagine, it is very difficult to scale and mass produce objects within the realm of nanotechnology. Their minute size makes them nearly impossible to manipulate. But scientists and engineers have teamed up to make the seemingly impossible a reality.

Which means those with the proper training will be highly sought after in the future. The National Science Foundation estimates that the U.S. alone will need up to 1 million nanotechnology researchers. It is estimated that the need for nanotechnology workers will reach 2 million by 2015.

Therefore, if you’re considering getting into the field of biotech, you may want to gear your background in nanotechnology if your school offers it or seek employment in this exciting new career field after graduating.

No matter what sub-branch you wind up specializing in, biotechnologists often collaborate with others in the laboratory and bounce ideas off one another. This can create a pleasant work environment; one that involves sharing with others and working together to achieve a great goal.

What Is Forensic Psychology?

In recent years forensic psychology and related topics such as criminal profiling have been the subject of a whole host of books, films and television series. While this has undoubtedly raised the profile of forensic psychology, the subject has often been presented in a distorted, sensationalised and inaccurate way.

With this very much in mind, this article outlines what you need to be aware of in order to provide a satisfactory answer to the question, what is forensic psychology?

When my students arrived for their first lecture, I would always start by giving them 10 minutes to write down an answer to the question what is forensic psychology? Before reading on, why not quickly write down what you think forensic psychology is.

The reason I did this was because despite the fact that every single undergraduate psychology student (about 180 of them) chose to do the forensic psychology course, not one of them came to see me in advance to ask what the course was about. Now bear in mind students chose their optional courses well in advance of the start date, and in order to make an informed choice they were all strongly advised to speak to the lecturer running the courses they were interested in before making a final decision.

So why the no show?

I suspect, actually I know because I discussed it with the students afterwards, that they didn't feel they had to find out what forensic psychology is, because they already had a preconceived idea.

I mentioned that at the start of the first lecture I would give students 10 minutes to write down an answer to the question what is forensic psychology. What I didn't mention, however, is that after about 2 minutes I would ask for their attention and apologise for forgetting to tell them that they weren't allowed to use the words serial killers or silence of the lambs in their answer. It was usually as this point that most of the writing in the lecture theatre stopped.

If you're thinking I would have stopped writing as well, please contain your disappointment and don't rush off just yet. The answer to the question, what is forensic psychology may not quite be what you thought, but that doesn't mean that the subject has to be any less engaging.

The first thing to appreciate when addressing the question is that even psychologists in the field are divided as to what the answer is. The division of criminological and legal psychology within the British Psychological Society argued for twenty years as to whether their members should be entitled to call themselves Chartered Forensic Psychologists. It was finally agreed that they should, however, there still remains a great deal of debate and controversy surrounding the issue.

The central problem is that its members are drawn from a wide range of disciplines, so it is always difficult to state what the boundaries are when you talk of Forensic Psychology.

A fragmented discipline?

Psychologists in the prison/correctional services. Clinical psychologists in special hospitals & the psychiatric services. Educational psychologists. Occupational psychologists. Academics

Now while it is important to acknowledge that this fragmentation of role exists, it is just as important to realise that these different groups are linked to forensic psychology because their work, expert knowledge or research activity is somehow connected with the law.

This legal connection makes perfect sense when you consider that the word forensic comes from the Latin forensis, which literally means appertaining to the forum, specifically the imperial court of Rome. So in essence:

The debate as to what is and what isn’t forensic psychology rests primarily on the nature of psychology’s relationship with the legal system.

Let me give you an example, imagine 2 clinical psychologists meet at a conference and they begin talking about the work they do. The first psychologist tells the second that she recently gave expert testimony in court arguing that the defendant in a murder case was criminally insane; the judge and jury agreed and having been found guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility the defendant was going to be sent to a secure psychiatric unit. Now there’s a coincidence the second psychologist says I work in the unit where they're sending him, so I’ll be dealing and treating this guy when he arrives.

So here you have a situation where two psychologists are linked to the legal system by way of a legal decision and you could argue, therefore, that both deserve to be seen as engaging in Forensic Psychology. However, there’s a crucial difference.

The first psychologist actually helped inform the legal decision based on her psychological knowledge and expertise. The second psychologists' involvement on the other hand arose as a consequence of a legal decision that she had no direct influence over.

My preferred forensic psychology definition acknowledges this key distinction, namely:

That branch of applied psychology which is concerned with the collection, examination and presentation of evidence for judicial purposes’ (Haward 1981).

If you adopt this definition you are stating categorically that Forensic Psychology relates to:

The provision of psychological information for the purpose of facilitating a legal decision (Blackburn 1996).

So in the case of our two psychologists, strictly speaking only the first can be said to be engaged in Forensic Psychology.

Not everybody would agree with this, because there is a school of thought that would claim that any activity that links psychology to the law deserves to be described as Forensic. I’m not going to try and convince you which is right, although I do have a strong opinion on the mater; the main thing is that you know that this debate exists.

Summary

In answering the question, what is forensic psychology we have discovered that:

In essence, forensic psychology refers to the application of psychology within a legal context.

The debate as to what is & what is not forensic psychology relates to the nature of this legal application & the level at which it is applied.

And this debate raises a number of questions that you need to think about. In particular:

The boundaries of forensic psychology?

The role of the forensic psychologist?

The credibility of forensic psychology.

To find out more about the fascinating world of forensic psychology visit www.all-about-forensic-psychology.com Forensic Anthropology Is Used In…

Forensic anthropology is the study of skeletal or evidentiary remains in relation to a case in a court of law. Anthropology is the study of human beings in both as an animalistic (physical) form as well as the study of social and habits of humans, usually by a process of examination of physical remains. Forensic refers to any of a given number of sciences used in the process of an investigation or proceeding before a court of law. Forensic anthropology has a long history dating back to the mid sixteenth century, but like most fields, recent advances in technology have propelled forensic anthropology to a whole new level.

Forensic anthropology is normally used when evidentiary remains are found that indicate a crime did or may have occurred. Sometimes, when old buildings are torn down or when old sections of a town are converted for whatever purpose remains will be found among the ruins. Forensic anthropologists are brought in to thoroughly investigate the scene. With the use of forensic anthropology, they can often determine whether or not a crime was committed, and if there was in fact a crime, forensic anthropology can then be used to solve it. While much of what is commonly seen on television is as much fantasy as it is reality, many aspects of forensic anthropology are growing exponentially.

Many new chemicals have aided in the growth of forensic anthropology. Chemicals help forensic anthropologists to do their job better and more effectively by helping them to gather and study evidence. There are chemicals for the illumination of bodily fluids, chemicals which define chemical components of evidence, chemicals that cleanse and chemicals that aid in many other ways in the field of forensic anthropology. As science progresses, so too will the assistance available in the field of forensic anthropology.

Advances in microscopic technology have also helped in the advancement of forensic anthropology. Microscopes can help the forensic anthropologist to define the minutest details in regards to a crime scene. Whether the particles are of a particular type of dust, plant or other matter, in many cases of forensic anthropology, this can place certain individuals at given locations often during specific time periods. This has been used in many civil and criminal cases scoring many court room victories which are credited to those individuals involved in the field of forensic anthropology.

Advances in science and technology are constantly improving the tools available in the field of forensic anthropology. These are very exciting times for the forensic anthropologist

HEALTH IN YOUR HANDS

If you want good health there are simple tips for it
1. Drink lots of water but not with food.
2. Eat 50 - 60% raw food if possible.
3. Take sprouted food.
4. Less salt in your food will solve all your health problems.
5. Take dry fruits and dates they give instant energy.
6. Avoid refined food it will open the root for new disease.
7. Avoid taking cloured foods becuase colour is very toxic.

FREE DAILY DIET PLANS

Free Daily Diet Plans are popping in your web search engines. You can hop from websites to websites that are promoting free daily diet plans that promise you to shed those unwanted pounds instantly. You might be trying their plan and then skip to another plan hoping to get better results. But this should not be the case. Diet plans should not be like what happens in laboratory experiments that when one does not work another trial must be taken. That can be dangerous for all we know because your health must be at risk. The safest way to apply any of these Free Daily Diet Plans is not to test all so that you will know which one works for you but to first educate yourself to things that you might run into.
Remember you are not the guinea pig in a lab. Take things with much precaution. What do I mean is that, first know what you need, know your body weight and find out your desired body weight to maintain. After that then it is time to plan for an appropriate calorie intake in order to achieve the desired weight. Losing weight is not only adapting the right diet plan but also the proper exercise must go with it too. Examine your body and find out which part needs shedding and toning. There are parts of our body that are just fine except of course if the condition needs real shaping. If that is the case, better consult your doctor first before moving on to diet plans. Your exercise regimen must be apt to what your body need, strenuous workout is probably not what is best for you but only a butt shaping or biceps toning. Long hours of physical exercise can only stress you out thus burn you out instead than burn your fats out. It will not achieve your purpose. Regular, we mean daily, but short exercise is wise than once or twice a week heavy physical exercise.
So what do you do after considering all these?
Then it is time to proceed to the Diet Plan, but before checking out and considering free daily diet plans, make the commitments and the discipline to carry on all that is in the diet plan, finalize your guidelines in following it, lest you will be bouncing back to your old body weight and will never move on to what you aim. Examples of this disciple and commitment guidelines is to eat what you can in moderation, never deprive yourself to food that you want to eat or else depravation most likely can cause you to drawback and tend to complement yourself which result to unwanted calorie intake. It is really a no-no to eat large meals, it is better to eat frequently 4 to 6 times than to starve yourself and overeat in a meal. Planning ahead and preparing your food can help you have a balance diet and prevent you from consuming more calories. I wish you the best of luck!

HISTORY OF STEMCELLS

•The history of the stem cell research had a benign in 1878 the first attempts were made to fertilize mammalian eggs outside the body.
•1900’s European researchers realised that the various type of blood cells e.g white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets all came from a particular ‘stem cell’. However, it was not until 1963 that the first quantitative descriptions of the self-renewing activities of transplanted mouse bone marrow cells were documented by Canadian researchers Ernest A McCulloch and James E Till.
•1959 first animals made by in-vitro fertilization.
•1960 Teratocarcnomas determined to originate from embryonic germ cells in mice.
•1968 the first human egg is fertilized in vitro.
•1970 EC cells injected into mouse blastocysts make chimeric mice.
•1978 the first IVF baby is born in England.
•1981 Mouse ES cells are derived form the inner cell mass of blastocysts.
•1984-88 Pluripotent, clonal cells called embryonal carcinoma cells are developed. When exposed to retinoic acid these cells differentiate into neuron_like cells and other type cells.

•1984-1988 Pluripotent, clonal cells called embryonic carcinoma cells are developed. When exposed to retinoic acid these cell differentiate into neuron-like cells and other cell types.
•1989 A clonal line of human embryonal carcinoma cells is derived that yields tissues from all three promary germ layers. They have limited replicative and differentiative capacity
•1994 Human blastocysts are generated and the inner cell mass is maintained in culture. ES like cells form in the center and retain stem cell like morphology.
•1995-96 Non human primate ES cells are maintained in vitro fro the inner cells mass of monkeys. These cells are Pluripotent and differentiate normally into all three primary germ layers.
• 1998 James Thomson Es cells from the inner cells mass of normal human blastocysts are cultured and maintained normally for many passages.
•2000 scientist derive human ES cells from the inner cell mass of blastocysts. They proliferation in vitro for a long time and form all three germ layers and teratomas when injected into immune deficient mice.
•2001 As human ES cell lines are shared and new lines are derived, more research groups are focusing attention on the differentiation of cells in vitro. Many methods focus on making human tissues for transplantation.