How to become a Molecular and Cellular Biologist 2024

Molecular and Cellular Biologist Research and study cellular molecules and organelles to understand cell function and organization.

Molecular and Cellular Biologist is Also Know as

In different settings, Molecular and Cellular Biologist is titled as

Molecular Biologist
Research Scientist

Education and Training of Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Molecular and Cellular Biologist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Training Required for Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Molecular and Cellular Biologist in different industries are

What Do Molecular and Cellular Biologist do?

Verify all financial, physical, and human resources assigned to research or development projects are used as planned.
Participate in all levels of bioproduct development, including proposing new products, performing market analyses, designing and performing experiments, and collaborating with operations and quality control teams during product launches.
Evaluate new supplies and equipment to ensure operability in specific laboratory settings.
Develop guidelines for procedures such as the management of viruses.
Coordinate molecular or cellular research activities with scientists specializing in other fields.
Confer with vendors to evaluate new equipment or reagents or to discuss the customization of product lines to meet user requirements.
Supervise technical personnel and postdoctoral research fellows.
Provide scientific direction for project teams regarding the evaluation or handling of devices, drugs, or cells for in vitro and in vivo disease models.
Perform laboratory procedures following protocols including deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing, cloning and extraction, ribonucleic acid (RNA) purification, or gel electrophoresis.
Monitor or operate specialized equipment, such as gas chromatographs and high pressure liquid chromatographs, electrophoresis units, thermocyclers, fluorescence activated cell sorters, and phosphorimagers.
Maintain accurate laboratory records and data.
Instruct undergraduate and graduate students within the areas of cellular or molecular biology.
Evaluate new technologies to enhance or complement current research.
Direct, coordinate, organize, or prioritize biological laboratory activities.
Develop assays that monitor cell characteristics.
Design databases, such as mutagenesis libraries.
Design molecular or cellular laboratory experiments, oversee their execution, and interpret results.
Compile and analyze molecular or cellular experimental data and adjust experimental designs as necessary.
Conduct research on cell organization and function, including mechanisms of gene expression, cellular bioinformatics, cell signaling, or cell differentiation.
Conduct applied research aimed at improvements in areas such as disease testing, crop quality, pharmaceuticals, and the harnessing of microbes to recycle waste.
Write grant applications to obtain funding.
Prepare or review reports, manuscripts, or meeting presentations.

Qualities of Good Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.

Tools Used by Molecular and Cellular Biologist

Automated cell counters
Automated DNA sequencing equipment
Automated microscopes
Automatic carbon dioxide CO2 incubators
Bacterial plate incubators
Centrifuge tubes
Charge-coupled device CCD cameras
Chemical hoods
Cloning cylinders
Cloning kits
Computerized axial tomography CAT scanners
Cooled benchtop centrifuges
Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA synthesizers
Desktop computers
Dessicators
Dissecting microscopes
Electrophoresis cameras
Emergency eye wash stations
Flow cytometers
Fluorescence microscopes
Fluorimeters
Gas chromatography equipment
Gel electrophoresis equipment
Gel imaging apparatus
Glass beakers
Gradiant thermocyclers
Heat blocks
High pressure liquid chromatograph HPLC equipment
Inverted binocular microscopes
Laboratory binocular optical microscopes
Laboratory chemical autoclaves
Laboratory floor centrifuges
Laboratory freezers
Laboratory orbital shakers
Laboratory transfer pipettes
Laboratory vacuum pumps
Laboratory water baths
Laminar flow hoods
Laptop computers
Magnetic resonance imaging MRI systems
Magnetic stirring hot plates
Manual single channel positive displacement pipettes
Manual single channel repeating pipetters
Mass spectrometers
Microbalances
Microcentrifuges
Microplate readers
Multichannel micropipettes
Nuclear magnetic resonance NMR spectroscopes
Nucleic acid hybridization ovens
Personal computers
pH analyzers
Phosphorimagers
Polymerase chain reaction PCR equipment
Polymerase chain reaction PCR thermocyclers
Robotic fluidics stations
Safety gloves
Scanning laser confocal microscopes
Serological kits
Spectrophotometers
Tabletop centrifuges
Thermocyclers
Ultraviolet-Visible UV/VIS spectrophotometers
Variable volume pipettes
Vortex rotators
Water purification systems
Yeast culture incubators

Technology Skills required for Molecular and Cellular Biologist

AcaClone pDRAW32
Adobe Illustrator
Agilent CGH Analytics
Agilent Technologies GeneSpring GX
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool BLAST
Blast Output Browser BOB
C++
ClustalW
Corel CorelDraw Graphics Suite
Corel WordPerfect Office Suite
CRI-MAP
Data mining software
Delila
Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA libraries
EnzymeX
FASTA
FASTLINK
Gene Recognition and Assembly Internet Link GRAIL
Genotyping software
Geospiza GeneSifter
Git
GraphPad Software GraphPad Prism
Laboratory information management system LIMS
Magma Design Automation software
Mathsoft Mathcad
Mendel
Michigan State University MSU ProFlex
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office software
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Word
Minitab
Molecular Devices Corporation MetaMorph
NetPrimer
PHYLIP
Primer3
Python
R
RasMol
Textco BioSoftware Gene Inspector
The MathWorks MATLAB
Web browser software
Wolfram Research Mathematica

US Universities

How to become Molecular and Cellular Biologist in 2024