Molecular Medicine

Craguls

Posting this here as well as the Health Sciences forum (since it seems to cross over into Health Sciences territory.)

I'm a TCD science student going into second year and have to start thinking about what speciality I'd like to work towards for third and fourth year and essentially I'm torn between two choices; Neuroscience and Molecular Medicine.

Both seem interesting but what's putting me off mol. med is the new nature of the field. Given that TCD are the only university to offer the degree in Ireland is it a worthwhile field to pursue in terms of employment, masters and phd's? I've toyed with emigrating in the past so I'm willing to work at it and am highly interested in both fields. I'm just curious as which is the better field to get involved in. Any and all info appreciated.

Tree

Im not familiar with the course/syllabus you're asking about, but certainly molecular medicine will probably leave you more employable than neuroscience. Especially if you get not only a good grounding in genetics techniques, but also a bit of bioinformatics and an introduction to the future uses of mol med. It's quite interesting, many bio degrees will cover it at some level, but an indepth study would be very very handy.

Capt'n Midnight

what's the story with bioinformatics ?

is it steady or
is it the next big thing or
is it just a buzzword

Improbable

I did a few bioinformatics classes as part of my degree in UCD. The focus on bioinformatics seemed to be the analysis of not just single organism genes but the mutations and homologies over a range of species as determined by various computer algorithms determinations of what is and what isnt a gene/pseudogene etc.

As for it being the next big thing, I really doubt it but you'd definitely have better luck getting a job with it than with pure neuroscience as quite a few of my friends have done that and they're finding it very difficult.

Kevster

The big hype surrounding bioinformatics was arguably 'too big'. The fact is that bioinformatics HAS already set it's foot firmly in the door of biology, and it is very much here to stay. I am doing my PhD on the genetics of breast cancer, but I've so far done much more bioinformatics work than anything. As I look around me, there are still some who do mostly lab-work, but the general trend is for computers to take-over laboratory tasks.

Kevin

Craguls

Sorry about only getting back to this now. Thanks for the replies, more stuff to consider anyway.