Biotechnology Careers Opportunities
There are many and varied career opportunities in biotechnology from medicine and pharmaceuticals, food production and quality control, to developing new materials, improving waste management, horticulture and agriculture.
The gene technology industry has been revolutionised by advances in the bioscience of cell biology, the sequencing of genomes and the resulting biological understandings.
Much of Australia's future wealth depends on its leadership and contribution to international advances in this field.
Biotechnology offers careers in both the public and private sector in industry, universities, hospitals, agriculture, mining, law and investment banking.
Examples of the many highly diverse careers in or associated with biotechnology are:
· cell biologist · forensic scientist · bioinformatician · agriculturalist · molecular geneticist · patent attourney · quality controller in the food and beverage industries · laboratory technician · environmental scientist · ethicist · gene technology regulator · research assistant · venture capitalist · policy developer · animal carer · communications specialist
Dr Julie Sharp, Molecular Biologist
Julie enjoys the challenge of the molecular complexity when working with genes. She describes her work as being like a puzzle. Julie is studying a mammosphere slide with a fluorescent microscope. A mammosphere is a specific group of cells that mimic the molecular events happening in the mammary gland, so they can be studied in the laboratory. This is called an in vitro model (compared with the mammary gland in the animal, the in vivo model). The active genes express proteins and these fluoresce or glow.
Understanding the molecular biology of the mammary gland might help the dairy industry by:
· increasing the protein content in milk
· increasing the casein content of milk used in the production of cheese
· identifying bioactives, molecules present in milk that have useful pharmaceutical or nutraceutical properties
· increasing the length of time over which cows can be milked
· allowing farmers to milk only once per day
Dr Christophe Lefevre, Bioinformatician
Christophe loves bioinformatics. He finds it exciting and imaginative. A bioinformatician deals with masses amount of genetic of information, gained through experimentation on gene sequences and expression patterns, that are stored in computer systems.
In functional genomics (what genes do), changes in as many as 10,000 genes can be examined almost at once using microarray technology to solve a particular problem. This enables us to determine which particular genes are involved in the process being studied. Dairy CRC scientists are interested in the lactation genes of the tammar wallaby and the Australian fur seal, and especially how these animals specifically control expression of these genes.
The Australian fur seal has the ability to switch its milk production off when foraging in the sea, yet as soon as the mother seal returns to shore she can turn her milk production on to feed her pup. The genes responsible for this could be useful for the dairy cow to extend its milking time, or to stop milking in times of drought.
The tammar wallaby has asynchronous lactation, that is at the same time she can feed both her very immature and much older young with milk of different compositions from different teats in her pouch. The genes that express the proteins that suit the very young may be useful for producing dairy milk containing colostrum for premature babies.
From the data of these genetic studies, we need to extract the specific information about the relevant genes. Using very powerful computers, the bioinformatician has to store, manage and analyse large amounts of information to answer these questions.
Click here for the bioinformatics facts page
Cate Pooley, Research Assistant 
Cate loves the mental challenges and discoveries in molecular biology. She enjoys being part of a team where everyone is challenged intellectually and where everyone's different skills are needed for the research projects.
Here she is using a gel to identify specific proteins. Because the proteins are different sizes, they migrate along the gel at different speeds. Stains and a blotting technique are used to show the positions of the various proteins. These are important routine techniques in molecular biology.
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