A Return to Decency
20/05/11 23:57 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Fri, 05/20/2011 - 23:57.
The lack of opportunities for post-graduates in the life sciences is a serious problem world-wide. It is untenable that university or government lab positions could or should be available for the vast majority. This means that industry has to be able to employ these highly trained and skilled individuals. Despite the enormous impact that biotechnology can have on many sectors of the economy, the industry has performed relatively poorly. However, this could change with remedial actions.
Like Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation, many new companies spin-out from academic-based research, often founded by university professors. Academic institutes and government agencies should be facilitating the ability of entrepreneurial professors to create companies rather than erecting barriers that stifle such activities, for example, on the basis of conflict of interest. It is in the public's best interest that their investment in universities or even government research institutions like the NIH translates into practical and applied knowledge and the creation of new jobs. One mechanism to foster this would be for universities to focus their hiring on new faculty that have a more practical bent and wider scope to their research interests. In this manner, graduate trainees under the tutorage of such professors would also be better prepared for a life in industry and might even start their own companies.
Link to the original blog post.
The lack of opportunities for post-graduates in the life sciences is a serious problem world-wide. It is untenable that university or government lab positions could or should be available for the vast majority. This means that industry has to be able to employ these highly trained and skilled individuals. Despite the enormous impact that biotechnology can have on many sectors of the economy, the industry has performed relatively poorly. However, this could change with remedial actions.
Like Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation, many new companies spin-out from academic-based research, often founded by university professors. Academic institutes and government agencies should be facilitating the ability of entrepreneurial professors to create companies rather than erecting barriers that stifle such activities, for example, on the basis of conflict of interest. It is in the public's best interest that their investment in universities or even government research institutions like the NIH translates into practical and applied knowledge and the creation of new jobs. One mechanism to foster this would be for universities to focus their hiring on new faculty that have a more practical bent and wider scope to their research interests. In this manner, graduate trainees under the tutorage of such professors would also be better prepared for a life in industry and might even start their own companies.
Link to the original blog post.