Scientific Commercialization

[Madmax_01]

I am an 24 year old international medical student from Europe, and about to start my diploma thesis (starting 4th year/6 years). There are many topics which I am interested in, especially drug design, drug targets, neuroscience, cancer pathways, organs-on-chips, smart drugs, ...
I have prior research experience (not much; internship and summer school) and it is definetly something I want to pursue further (PhD programm, private sector). I am inclined to invest more time and energy in this thesis, to publish it as a scientific article (if possible) but furthermore to build a foundation for a future "commercialization move" (you'll get what I mean in the next paragraph).

As you can see from my list, I have not pinned down a specific research field. The reason why is because I want to find a research topic where I can take my work and use it in a form of commercialization (patent, found a startup ...). I know this might not be possible after the diploma thesis, BUT this thesis could be the chance to do the groundwork for such a venture. That is why I want to choose my project really carefully.
F.e. as pointed out before I am very interested in drug design/drug targets, but I assume because the drug development process is so expensive, it would be hard for med student to start a pharmaceutical start up based on his research.

That is why I wanted to ask, which scientific area/field/topic would fit my requirements in terms of turning research in some sort of profit?
I would be grateful for your recommendations.

PS: I have also prior business experience, though not related to bioscience/medical science.

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[deleted343839]

That is why I wanted to ask, which scientific area/field/topic would fit my requirements in terms of turning research in some sort of profit?

I once worked in the private sector with a few people who came from academic settings with strong commercialization/technology transfer infrastructure. I am no expert, but I will say this much: you're getting ahead of yourself. Very rare is the person who profits off their thesis research. Good mentoring and networking are critical. You will find plenty of people who will offer opinions about the Next Big Thing, but you should focus now on working with people who have some know-how in this area.

 

[Madmax_01]

Thank you very much for your input.

I once worked in the private sector with a few people who came from academic settings with strong commercialization/technology transfer infrastructure.

In which field(s) did you work? Pharmaceuticals? Biotechnology? Bioengineering?

Very rare is the person who profits off their thesis research.

I completely understand and I do not expect to turn my thesis into profit, but I want to invest in a field where is a financial potential.
To give you an example: A colleague of mine told me a few days ago that something worth trying would be investigating "biomarkers". That was an advice that helped me, because it gave me a new perspective.

 

[deleted343839]

Years ago I worked for a biotech startup in the regenerative medicine space. The founders sold off the company about 10 years later when their product was still in early phase trials. That's a risky way of making money but people do it. Most people focused on early phase discovery are bench scientists, however, not physicians.

Biomarkers. Nanoparticles. Genomics and various other -omics. Biosensors. There are a lot of fields you can jump into, but again, training and mentoring are very important. If it were easy to tell which innovation was going to deliver the highest ROI, a lot more people would be rich by now.