Med Research Jobs

[msommers]

Not really sure if I should post this here or in the job section but I had a couple questions about it. I'm a current Bio student at the U of C and really want to get into medical research, what exactly I'm not totally sure yet.

The thing that my parents have been asking me about lately is finding a job in Calgary or close buy that hires people? It seems either profs or pre-med, or medical students are doing the research type field voluntarily or for some type of credit, rather than getting paid. Is this stuff more of a side project than a real job? Thanks!

[nismodrifter]

I know people in my department (physiology) have hired students over the summer. The students make like I dunno....probably $11-$15 bucks an hour or something like that. I know that they ARE getting paid for it though. The TA's in my lab are 4th year students and they get paid $11/hr for just coming in and basically talking to us while we are doing our work.

[xrayvsn]

I used to work in the summers as a research student, though I usually had it set up sometime in Feb/March for the upcoming summer. There are typically a lot of labs that you can work in for the summer, ask around at the Heritage building (your best bet), or in Bio Sci.

I got funded through AHFMR for the summer, but I am pretty sure you have missed the deadline for application. It has been 10 years since I did this, but back then I got $1300/month. There are some other funding agencies you can go through like the Alberta Cancer Board and NSERC, but the prof you hook up with will know more about the different avenues available. You may get lucky and find someone who has extra funding to hire someone for the summer, so it doesn't hurt to call around.

Good luck!

[msommers]

so typically there arn't any career orientated jobs out there in this field? Thanks for the info though, I'll have to remember that for next year!

[Stratus_Power]

Not sure what you meant by that msommers, if you are interested in medical research you will HAVE to go into graduate school. Unless your definition of a career is being a lab tech ( making solutions, running gel, ordering enzymes...)

There are usually many summer research position available, all you have to is approach the prof/researcher and ask if they are looking for summer student to help out. UofC Med faculty website does have posting for summer positions, but your best bet would be to look up each member of the faculty, see what they are doing their research on, find the ones that interest you, and approach them to see if they want a summer student. The worst they can do is say No. but its probably too late now, most of those positions are filled back in January (learned the hard way from personal experience)

Especially if the researchers are only looking for ppl who qualify for a AHFMR or NSERC Grant, so they dont have to pay out of their own pocket.

So my suggestion for next year is to plan ahead, and start looking in Dec

[msommers]

Thanks for the response stratus_power.

I figured the positions would be filled already but this was more for interest's sake for now rather than finding an actual job...sorry for the unclear picture promoted.

I will also have to do more researching into this b/c I don't even know what AHFMR or NSERC Grant's are! Thanks again for all the info.

[TimG]

I believe that the NSERC application deadline is mid/late october (at least it is for PGS and post-doc applications, not sure about summer employment). NSERC is the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. They are the federal granting body for students and professors.

It's too late to get nserc for this year and you most likely won't get any paying job in a research lab this late in the game.

What you could do is find a prof who is doing something that interests you and offer to come in 2-3 a week at a minimum. don't say 1-2 times a week because they'll consider you more trouble than you're worth.. they'll basically have to train you twice as long because you're not in often enough. If you do a good job and impress the prof, they might "find" the money to pay you next summer.

You can also consider applying for a summer job with the national research council (NRC). they have a new nanotechnology institute at the UofA that is just opening and they do medical-related work there like bioMEMs, lab on a chip, etc.

If your program has a co-op option, that would also help you out.

Good luck.

[msommers]

Thank you so much, the info provided is awesome:D

[Stratus_Power]

yeh it is definitly not a bad idea to volunteer at a lab ( for a good potion of the week, not like 4 hours a day), it gives you reference, connections and looks good on the resume.

I highly suggest you to plan ahead for what you want to do in Grad school (not sure how far you are into the BSc program). The Oncology department is pretty famous in UofA, and they give you $20,000 scholarship automatically if you get into their graduate program too so thats not bad. But part of their requirments is to have an undergrad HONOR degree in BSc.. so stuff like that you should look/plan ahead of time. You dont want to be finding stuff like that two weeks before you gradute with only a specialization ( personal experience).

[msommers]

Yeah I knew that going into this, it is actually the reason why I'm asking now! The information provided has been exactly what I was looking for. Also information on these sites have been really useful:

http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/grants/Sum-student.php

http://research.myweb.med.ucalgary.ca/ResearchGroups.html

I actually have a couple friends in Health and Society at the U of C now, one doing volunteer research. The guy has been really lucky in that for the last three summers, he has gone to Tanzania to help with medical programs there. He is also majoring in Anthro:rolleyes: No thanks!

Thanks again guys, I really do appreciate it :)

[Mo Squared]

mssommers is ure friend in Health Science? those people get all the goodies. But anyway what everone is saying here is right and u should take their advice. One more piece of advice...I would try to get a position in industry (a biotech company) for some reasons. Firstly NSERC still will fund you, and on top of that these companies are minting money so they will pay you on top of that. Also if you make connections now then when you get ure degree and u want a job in industry rather than acedemia (industry has more pay/benefits/but not as much freedom to your research) then you have that foot in the door, and they are always willing to hire you throughout the year and the summers after because good people are hard to find....

[msommers]

Well put Mo. I'll throw this out there because I havn't even looked yet but what Biotech companies are in Calgary?

[Mo Squared]

Well firstly i would suggest looking for companies that are based on campus, I know of a couple (MBEC and another one i cant remember) and you can probably just do a google search for university of calgary biotech companies. I would suggest talking to other companies that are just based in calgary. I dont know of many but there are ones such as innovotech, pfizer (has positions here), government labs, etc.

[Gondi Stylez]

Originally posted by Stratus_Power
yeh it is definitly not a bad idea to volunteer at a lab ( for a good potion of the week, not like 4 hours a day), it gives you reference, connections and looks good on the resume.

I highly suggest you to plan ahead for what you want to do in Grad school (not sure how far you are into the BSc program). The Oncology department is pretty famous in UofA, and they give you $20,000 scholarship automatically if you get into their graduate program too so thats not bad. But part of their requirments is to have an undergrad HONOR degree in BSc.. so stuff like that you should look/plan ahead of time. You dont want to be finding stuff like that two weeks before you gradute with only a specialization ( personal experience).

r u 1000000000000% sure??!?!?! I was looking at the websit and have talked to my oncopharmacology prof and she said having an honors degree is not a requirement?!?!

FUCK! i wanna work there in sep and maybe do my masters in oncology. pharmacology and biochemistery are the other 2 maters programs im looking at

[hash]

no, you don't need an honours degree. you do need a minimum gpa of 3.3 though.

its on their website:

http://www.graduate-studies-in-cancer-research.org/Application.html

[Stratus_Power]

oh shit i hugely misread that...... i apologize!!

[Gondi Stylez]

haha its all good... u scared the shit outta me though :D