We’ve interviewed many NIGMS-funded researchers over the years to learn about their career paths and passions inside and outside the laboratory. Many have shared advice for students who are interested in pursuing a career in science. We’ve compiled a handful of those nuggets of advice here and hope that they help you find inspiration to chase your career goals. Check out the links to the full Biomedical Beat blog posts featuring these researchers if you haven’t already.

Many of us enjoy learning about topics like plants, weather, or rocks, but did you know that you can make a career out of your love for science? Scientist is a job title, just like carpenter, firefighter, or lawyer. At NIGMS, we work to get students interested in careers in health science. Read on to learn about some of the different jobs that biomedical scientists do and the level of education they require. (Find more info on the different education paths in our first post of this series.) And who knows, maybe this post will spark your interest in pursuing one of these jobs in the future!

Do you love learning about science but aren’t sure how to turn it into a career? Or maybe you already know that you want to be a scientist but you’re wondering what steps it takes? If this sounds like you, you’ve come to the right place!

For most people, the path to becoming a scientist starts in the classroom, where you might be introduced to topics like biology, chemistry, and physics. After high school, some science-loving students choose to follow a path to becoming a doctor or a teacher, but those are just two of the many biomedical scientific careers available. Regardless of what field you’re interested in, here’s a rough guide to the different levels of training that scientists may have.

In our miniseries on genetics, we've introduced the genome and how variants in DNA affect us. We've also discussed how people inherit genetic information and the way genes are expressed, as well as common tools researchers use to study DNA. We hope you've paid close attention because it's time to test your knowledge of genetics! Take our quiz below, and let us know how many questions you answered correctly.

Hydras might look like they’re visitors from outer space, but they’re actually Earth-dwelling animals that can be found in fresh water, like ponds or gentle streams. The body of a hydra consists of a thin tubelike stalk that’s about an inch long with several tentacles extending from one end. Some hydras can grow an armlike extension that eventually pops off the main stem to become a new hydra.

Humans have studied hydras for hundreds of years. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, one of the earliest known microscopists, first described them in 1703 when he looked at water samples under a microscope. You can see hydras—whose bodies are about the length of a paperclip—without them, but microscopes help researchers see their shape in better detail. Scientists commonly use hydras as research organisms because of their incredible ability to regrow lost body parts after injury through a process called regeneration.

The Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) is only about as big as a golf ball, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in its superpower—an invisibility cloak to be exact. Thanks to its symbiotic relationship with the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri, it’s able to seemingly disappear from its predators when swimming at night.  

These super-squid live in the shallow coastal waters in the Pacific, like those around the Hawaiian Islands. They’re nocturnal, so they hunt their prey—small shrimp and other crustaceans—at night and hide, often by burying themselves in the sand, during the day while they rest. Although Hawaiian bobtail squid live their short 3-10 month lives around one another, they generally only interact for breeding, and even then, they only reproduce once in their lifetimes and die soon after reproduction.

Have you ever noticed plastic utensils or paper plates labeled as “biodegradable” and wondered what that meant? Materials are biodegradable when microorganisms such as bacteria can break them down into their building blocks.

Throughout our immunology miniseries, we introduced the immune system and its many functions and components. Additionally, we highlighted how vaccines train your immune system, how the system can go awry, and how NIGMS-supported researchers are studying immunology and infectious diseases. Put your knowledge about the immune system to the test by taking the quiz below.

The friendly-looking axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) doesn’t seem to have much in common with its namesake, Xolotl—the Aztec god of lightning, death, and fire. In fact, axolotls can regrow lost limbs and other body parts like organs and parts of their central nervous systems—which goes against the concept of death!

Andrew G. Campbell, Ph.D., a professor of medical science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and previous dean of the graduate school, is passionate about researching understudied diseases and helping students reach their full potential.

Dr. Campbell’s lab has studied the single-cell organism Trypanosoma brucei (T. brucei), a parasite transmitted through the bite of the tsetse fly, which is only found in specific regions of Africa. In humans, T. brucei causes African Trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness. Symptoms of this illness include headache, weakness, tiredness, and altered sleep schedules; and if left untreated, it can be fatal. Dr. Campbell studies the function of certain enzymes found in T. brucei and other infectious agents, like hepatitis B virus and HIV, with the hope that they can serve as targets for new treatments for diseases.