Biotechnology and its real “scope”

Akhila Sachidanandam

“Scope” We frequently hear this word associated with studies – the field of study one wish to delve in. We like it or not, “what scope does a particular field of study have, is synonymous with “what job prospective does the subject offer?” The field of study that would fetch you a job immediately out of college, pays you a 5-digit salary and if every fifth person is in a job related to that field, the subject is claimed to have good scope. As of today, biotechnology has apparently found a place in the list of fields that has got good “scope”. Before I declare it a misconception, with respect to my previous statement, let me state what a biotechnology graduate can do. A) he/she can pursue a doctoral degree and get into full time research or professing. B) he/she can join a biotechnology company and assist in their production of economically important biological products. Let s consider the former case. One can not expect to become a research scientist right out of college and it certainly isn’t encouraging to see its only every 50th person getting into research, slogging all through a project and gets paid lesser than a 9:00am to 7:00pm office goer. In the latter case, one can earn a decent living but that isn’t like something out of the box.

Biotechnology is portrayed as a rapidly growing field because, manipulations that has lead to certain discoveries have been proved to be a boon to man kind in increasing the average lifespan atleast of the generations to come. This is the very reason why biotechnology is being so talked about, relative to microbiology or biochemistry, leave alone molecular biology and genetics. The misconception is that, “because biotechnology is so much in news, lot of discoveries are made everyday, biotechnology has good scope.” This goes to say, it isn’t necessary that a biotechnologist would have a sustained “job” with a salary that would multiply exponentially periodically. The reason why the word job appears in quotes is that, research isn’t a job. Research isn’t mechanical. It requires an abundance of knowledge and analytical skills. Ofcourse every job requires that but when man found it highly challenging and onerous to slove the Y2k problem, the problem that He created, I don’t have to explain what it would be like to study and understand nature, that is flawless and even worse, manipulate it. In research, it is as right to say there is a reason to every result obtained or not obtained, as it is to say sometimes there could be no reason to why a particular experiment does or does not work. By “no reason”, I mean it might not be known to man.

Biotechnologists are therefore researchers like researchers in any other field of biology. They have an edge over the other researchers in that, if they come up with a beneficial GMO, he has the chance to patent it after it is passed through intensive examination and trials according to statements of IPR and become a millionaire, if he will live that long. I would like to emphasise that not every Tom, Dick and Harry would be lucky enough to produce a GMO, which boils down to the fact that scope for biotechnology research is like research in any other field of biology.

My intention here is not to discourage anybody but for the sophomores and those pursuing their UG very often seem to be misguided by the hype that media has elicited. Research is not an issue of what you gain more than a satisfaction or excitement when you arrive at something. But if and when you do arrive at something, trust me, nothing feels better than that. Certainly you can earn a decent living. But at the end of the day you may realise, it hasnt been commensurate with your effort and time put in. In addition, it takes so much time – by the time you are designated a scientist, you would be 27+. When you look back you would see you’ve passed “youthood” with no fun and frolic. That is simply why only a negligible number of students opt for a course in life sciences. Thats good news actually because, its only the passionates that can get there and thus there is going to be no stagnation. That ensures quality research.