How specific research focus should be before starting biology PhD

[DadTwoGirls]

@twogirls

Is there somebody at your daughter’s job who has a PhD?

There are a few, and my daughter has been talking to a couple of them.

@twogirls

I also seem to remember her telling me that gpa is not what is most important.

I have heard this also. This might be a pity in my daughter’s case, but is nonetheless probably the right thing.

@parentologist

If her current interest is cancer-fighting immunology, she should get a job in a lab doing that, if at all possible, but I don’t think that it would be held against her that her current biotech research job does not exactly match her PhD interest.

My daughter knows someone who left her current employer, and went to a different company to work on immunology applied to cancer research. The tradeoff seems to be between staying at a job where she likes the job, likes the people and where they are trying to solve a problem that would be a really big deal should they succeed, versus moving to a different company that is working in an area that she wants to understand better.

Perhaps I as a dad should remember that she is young. There is plenty of time to see how the current research effort plays out over time, and then switch to a different research effort.

I am excited and maybe a bit impatient about getting the results for both research efforts. However, patience seems to be a requirement for researchers (and perhaps parents of researchers), as is keeping in mind that any particular research effort might fail.

@parentologist

an mRNA vaccine against a person’s own pancreatic cancer cells has preliminarily shown 50% efficacy

This is indeed huge, and very good news for people who have cancer. It might be particularly good news for those of us whose cancer is so slow that we have the time to wait for more research results.