Most high-tech and/or intellectually deep area of biomedical research?

[SiriusA]

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In your experience, which fields combine techniques and ideas from many different disciplines in their research? What kinds of cool machinery do you use in your research? What are the most "high-tech" research fields? I imagine some kind of biomedical engineering.

Personally, I have worked on a biophysics research project that was heavily based on statistical mechanics, Monte Carlo algorithms, etc. I found that pretty awesome! I have also worked on cancer research where we use big X-ray machines.

 

[deleted393595]

In your experience, which fields combine techniques and ideas from many different disciplines in their research? What kinds of cool machinery do you use in your research? What are the most "high-tech" research fields? I imagine some kind of biomedical engineering.

Nanoparticle synthesis and drug coating maybe

 

[SiriusA]

Nanoparticle synthesis and drug coating maybe

I actually have made nanoparticles before... once you know the "ingredients" you basically just mix everything together in a tube and the nanoparticles form automatically. In that sense it wasn't that interesting, but maybe your nanoparticles are cooler than mine... 😳

Which medical specialties have the "coolest" research?

 

[type12]

I feel like you are asking for job rather than field, because, well, I'd say astrobiology is the most "deep" because the fundamental questions are still there. Job wise, if you're just the research tech preparing samples for the guys doing the fun stuff, then it'd be pretty boring.

 

[SiriusA]

I feel like you are asking for job rather than field, because, well, I'd say astrobiology is the most "deep" because the fundamental questions are still there. Job wise, if you're just the research tech preparing samples for the guys doing the fun stuff, then it'd be pretty boring.

True. I guess what I'm interested in is research that's interesting on a day-to-day basis if you're a grad student or postdoc. "The guys doing fun stuff" -- what field are they working in?

Though I guess, even if you become the PI of your own lab after going into some medical specialty, you will mostly be designing the experiments but not necessarily "doing" the research on a day-to-day basis?

 

[Narmerguy]

True. I guess what I'm interested in is research that's interesting on a day-to-day basis if you're a grad student or postdoc. "The guys doing fun stuff" -- what field are they working in?

Though I guess, even if you become the PI of your own lab after going into some medical specialty, you will mostly be designing the experiments but not necessarily "doing" the research on a day-to-day basis?

This really depends on your interests. Some people truly find virology and microbiology interesting. Others are fascinated by running large amounts of code on massive genomic databases. It's difficult to say what's the most exciting because it'll ultimately come down to what you enjoy doing (manual stuff with hands, computer work, lots of variety or narrow focus, multidisciplinary or more traditional, etc).

In my opinion, I think things with deep roots in genetics will be big. With the plummeting costs of sequencing, personalized medicine is really going to become closer and closer to a reality. Our technology and knowledge of computers is also growing at leaps and bounds, giving us the ability to actually do something with all this data that is coming our way.

 

[EnergyDrink]

I actually have made nanoparticles before... once you know the "ingredients" you basically just mix everything together in a tube and the nanoparticles form automatically. In that sense it wasn't that interesting, but maybe your nanoparticles are cooler than mine... 😳

Which medical specialties have the "coolest" research?

I feel the same about computers. You just turn it on and start typing and it does everything automatically.

 

[Lil Mick]

Bioinformatics and statistical genomics are two that combine a lot of mathematics and computing with -omics fields. Biomathematics is also deeply rooted in in several fields of math (topology, differential equations...). I haven't done much work in engineering, but I would imagine that those folks also employ a bit of computing and math in their research.

 

[SiriusA]

Bioinformatics and statistical genomics are two that combine a lot of mathematics and computing with -omics fields. Biomathematics is also deeply rooted in in several fields of math (topology, differential equations...). I haven't done much work in engineering, but I would imagine that those folks also employ a bit of computing and math in their research.

Statistical genomics sounds pretty interesting, maybe I can take a class on it. I do have the math background but applications to biology/biochemistry are more interesting.