<p>What kind of skills?</p>
<p>That depends; what area of biomedical research are you going into?</p>
<p>Tenacity, self-motivation, the ability to read papers/go to talks and recall the crucial points. Critical thinking is a must.</p>
<p>in today’s biology, you need strong quantitative skills in addition to the points mollie brought up. else, you’re just going to be a wet-lab monkey.</p>
<p>thanks for the reply.</p>
<p>I’m getting a bit of training right now to be more quantitative, if I understand you correctly (modeling in differential eq’s and programming). </p>
<p>What exactly do you mean by quantitative though?</p>
<p>Are you asking about lab skills (like PCR, gels, cell culture techniques, microscopy)? Or personal qualities (like ability to work very long hours with often a high probability of failure and still come in the weekend to finish)?</p>
<p>all around solid skills in mathematics – linear algebra, pde’s, programming / numerical analysis, and machine learning all help in fields like network analysis and general modeling in systems biology. the experiments are easy to pick up, but what’s really interesting is trying to develop good theory to accompany the loads of biological data out there.</p>
<p>The ability to talk for upwards of 30 minutes without causing people around you to start checking their email or voice messages.</p>