Is it possible to do research in cell/molecular biology without doing experimental work myself?

Question

I am currently a master’s student hoping to shift into a PhD. The thing is, I hate the lab work. I love all the literature review, designing experiments, troubleshooting problems and data interpretation.

Is there some sort of work around or is this just part of paying my dues?

The most likely answer that comes to mind is: “suck it up and pay your dues”, which I totally get, but is there an area somewhere that negates the benchwork, or is that just years of climbing until I get to be a PI (well, if I get to be a PI).

Answer 1

I don't think it is possible or constructive to avoid lab work in your field at PhD level.

The point of a PhD is to train you as an independent researcher, and therefore you need to be familiar with all stages of the research process, including data collection. There are plenty of fields for which data collection does not involve lab work, but unfortunately for you, cell and molecular biology are not among them.

Going through the process of lab work is not just important in terms of getting the data, it informs the rest of your work. I don't believe you will design an experiment as effectively if you are not familiar with exactly how long the different processes will take, where the challenges lie, where errors might creep in, and so on. Likewise, you are better able to interpret the data if you understand how it was collected. This stuff can be learnt to some extent by reading/talking to people/being given a demo, but by far the best way is to do it yourself.

"Paying your dues" may be a part of it - certainly, someone needs to do the legwork! - but I would encourage you not to look at it that way. At this stage in your career, it is highly valuable to you to gain an overview of the research process, even if later on (and you might not have to wait until you are a PI) you specialise in a particular phase of research.

EDIT: Others have pointed out fields, such as bioinformatics, in which it is possible to avoid lab work. Perhaps I was considering "cell and molecular biology" too narrowly. Nonetheless, bioinformatics still ultimately relies on data, and so I still believe that gaining experience of how that data is gathered is highly valuable.

Answer 2

If you want to avoid laboratory work, you need to go into an area of the field where you develop a valuable expertise that is not laboratory work. That may then put you in a position to be a valuable collaborator for people who do engage in laboratory work, rather than a parasite upon them.

Fortunately for you, in this computational age there is quite a lot of such work. Examples include molecular modeling, *omics, bioinformatics, metabolic engineering, sequence optimization, and many others.

Answer 3

I am currently a master’s student hoping to shift into a PhD. The thing is, I hate the lab work. I love all the literature review, designing experiments, troubleshooting problems and data interpretation.

You've just described a couple potential directions you could go in, depending on your inclinations. Someone in the comments suggested bioinformatics, but I don't think that's quite right.

For me, the fundamental question here is "How strong is your math background, and do you like theory work?", neither one of which is really answered in your question. But there's some paths potentially open to you:

• Biostatistics: Biostatisticians are (ideally) involved in the design of experiments stage, and in analyzing data, while someone else is responsible for actually collecting it. Their expertise is concentrated in analysis, and being able to work in the areas where the usual tools used in a field start not working any more.
• Computational/theoretical biology. There's lots of modeling work to be done that's informed by experimental work, but isn't actually based on wet-lab experiments. You can fairly productively collaborate in this field, and having a little lab experience is a plus.

The latter is the path I took in my own field - I'm a computational epidemiologist. If all goes according to plan, I never see the inside of a lab, nor talk to a study subject.

Answer 4

You may have already seen this

And although it's meant to be a joke, there's a rather large element of truth to it. Science is built on a foundation of cheap labour. It's not about paying your dues - because that implies you already owe it, and it implies that once you've paid it, you're morally free to do it to many other people.

Rather, think of it this way - if you want to be in a situation in 10 years time where you can boss 10 people around and not do any labwork, you have to be bossed around, and then beat 9 other people for the bossing-around job (or hope they drop out of academia altogether).

This might sound a little negative, but it's important that you see the road ahead clearly before you walk toward it. Too many people enter academia expecting the PI position after paying their dues, but the reality is that most people who enter a PhD never make it to academic independence ever. I don't know anything about you, so I would say there's a 9/10 chance that will be you too. If you feel you're the 1/10, then go for it! But realise it's not something you can afford to simply endure. You have to excel!

(As a side note, if you can use Linux and program a bit, you could do a PhD with some Bioinformatic element to it - but this will be no less intensive. In many cases, it's more hours per day since you can work from home.)