What bachelor's degree should I pursue for a career in nanomedicine research?

[#neutrino]

I would like to do research on nano medicine such as creating drug delivery systems and smart drugs i need to know what kind of bachelor i should do and which universities offer the best research in this area in America
and how to progress from the bachelor to a full time researcher ?

 

[Asteropaeus]

I'd say chemistry.

There's more to nanomedicine that just drug delivery. You can make sensors, diagnostic methods, stuff that improves imaging, and many other things. And even drug delivery can be done through different approaches.

 

[Choppy]

The applications of nano-materials in medicine are indeed numerous, as pointed out above. As a result there's no single "best" path or "best" program out there, and a lot can depend on what you want to do.

If you want to actually be the person responsible for treating the patient - then you need to pursue the professional field of medicine.

If you want to more directly develop nano-materials then chemistry, chemical engineering, or materials science would all be good routes.

If you're more interested in bonding specific nano-materials with drugs or antibodies and then measure uptake and effectiveness of the intended treatment, then you might want to look at biochemistry.

If you're interested in using nano-materials as agents to better identify physiological activity or cellular metabolic processes you could go into fields involving medical molecular imaging such as biomedical engineering or biophysics.

I think ultimately though, this might be a case of putting the cart before the horse. It's kind of like saying you want to play hockey and asking what kind of skate you need to buy.

 

[#neutrino]

Thank You , your insight was invaluable

 

[#neutrino]

I want to know about job stats in nano medicine in america

 

[trigger701]

What sort of stats?

 

[#neutrino]

Like the no. Of people currently employed in such fields
The expected demand and growth of the job market
The average salary of a nanomedical scientist

 

[Ben Espen]

Like the no. Of people currently employed in such fields
The expected demand and growth of the job market
The average salary of a nanomedical scientist

Have you looked at any of the available salary and employment websites that compile such information?

 

[amys299]

I actually work at a lab at my (soon to be) university which works heavily on nanotechnology and its biomedical application. I know a couple of the interns are chemical/biological (biochemical?) engineers and this past semester they researched how to use magnetic nanoparticles to clear away mucus and deliver drugs to the lungs in patients with cystic fibrosis. In a previous year, one of the biochemical engineering interns researched whether zinc nanoparticles are less toxic to patients than the metal currently used and tried using them to detect pain in the spinal cord. There's another intern in the same group who's a physics major and the professor who wrote the grant and is the lead of the research has a PhD in Physics. He does research in colloidal nanocrystals, quantum dots, and a lot of other stuff.

Also keep in mind research is generally done in teams of various scientist in a variety of disciplines, so there are a lot of paths you can take. The lab I work at is primarily concentrated on photonics so many of the head researchers have a physics or a electrical engineering degree but it does not mean you need one. You can always go into nanoparticle from a multitude of STEM disciplines.

P.S. If you ask me more about the research, I probably won't know much because I don't do research in that area. I just work in the same lab doing different research with light.

 

[#neutrino]

Thank You for your advice