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Shaping future through Biotechnology specializations & Career Opportunities

By Viestories
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Careers in Biotechnology
Careers in Biotechnology

Biotechnology is a field concerned with combining living mechanisms with technology and engineering in order to discover and develop new products or a process. Discovering how living creatures work at the molecular basis is fundamental to biotechnology, which brings together a plethora of various disciplines such as biology, mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

Current biotechnology keeps on making a substantial contribution to prolonging human longevity and encouraging positive life. Biotechnology has a wide spectrum of applications, with the most common being in medical and healthcare sciences, biomedical engineering, cell biology, agriculture, immunology, and many more.  It has an abundance of profitable job prospects in the medical science field and also in research and development (R&D).

Growing in Biotechnology

After secondary school

To stand up with a strong ground in biotechnology domain, it is crucial to take the first step as the best to our decision. One can begin with graduating in different disciplines of biotech such as biotechnology, microbiology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics.

  1. B.Sc. in Biotechnology/ Microbiology/ Medical Biotechnology/ Bioinformatics/ Molecular Biology/ Biomedicine
  2. BTech in Biotechnology

Importance of Training or Internship

While pursuing a Biotechnology undergraduate or bachelor's program, it is critical to look into training and possibilities of internship in research organizations or in areas of medicine or technology. This will also assist oneself suit the job profile of Biotechnologist or related sectors better by adding to resume/ curriculum vitae and demonstrating the professional and practical exposure in the biotechnology domain.

Exploring heights with the Master’s degree

The bachelor’s program is just the first step in measuring the depth of biotechnology. The next move involves specialization in this area by choosing the master’s degree. It can include specialization in medical biotech, molecular biology, Genomics, bioinformatics, applied biotech, industrial biotech, and environmental biotech. This specialization will build oneself with the essential skills required to undertake a professional future in Biotech.

Developing skills with the Doctoral degree

People who aspire to move deep into research or academics should opt to go with the doctorate degree such as PhD in the biotech discipline. Biotechnology research is carried out by a number of institutes across the world. Many of these establishments are self-governing, while some are government-owned. If one want to pursue an ultimate career in biotech in India, participating in research projects at these organizations would be quite beneficial.

  1. ICAR - Indian Council of Agriculture Research
  2. DST - Department of Science and Technology
  3. CSIR - Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
  4. DRDO - Defense Research and Development Organization

There are several disciplines of biotechnology offering different positions for a biotechnologist mentioned below.

Medical Biotechnology

The term medical biotechnology refers to the use of biotech in the medical science area. Biotechnology firms are at the core of the healthcare industry, whether they are generating diagnostic tools, vaccines, pharmaceuticals, or medical equipments. Biotechnology domains such as molecular biology, recombinant technology, and immunology are benefited from the medical firm's development. The job profiles for this field involves pharmaceutical research technician, clinical laboratory technician, food safety mechanism, environmental technician.

Plant Biotechnology

Plant biotechnology refers to a range of approaches for adapting plants to meet specific requirements or possibilities. Greenhouse/ field technician, plant tissue culture (PTC) technician, research investigator, and genomics technician are all examples of plant biotechnologist job descriptions.

Food Biotechnology

The use of current technologies and methods of biotech to the manufacturing and processing of foodstuffs, and also food components and supplements, is known as food biotechnology. Quality manager, food technologist, regulatory affairs officer, and product development scientist are all examples of food biotechnologist job titles.

Environmental Biotechnology

Environmental biotechnology uses biological mechanisms to solve environmental challenges such as sustainable energy generation/biomass production and contaminant remediation. Bioremediation involves the utilization of microbes such as bacteria, fungus, algae, and plants. Biotechnology is, in some ways, unavoidable for the environment and humanity.

The career in this field involves environmental science and protection technician, environmental scientist, agricultural engineer, sustainability specialist, environmental engineer.

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is a branch of biology integrating computer science that deals with acquiring, storing, analyzing, and disseminating biological information, most commonly nucleotide and amino acid combinations. Bioinformatics makes more use of computer algorithms to determine gene and protein functions, identify phylogenetic linkages, and forecast the 3 - D structures of proteins, among other things. This field accounts job as bio analysts, data scientists, and bioinformatics researchers.

Biotechnology might be in its budding stage at present but the COVID scenario has cleared that biotech will definitely boost exponentially and come out as a crucial area to be researched and explored.

Author - Anjali Pandit, M.Sc. Biotechnology
Author - Anjali Pandit, M.Sc. Biotechnology