Why is a career as a "genomics biologist" cool?

Why is a career as a "genomics biologist" cool?

Marty Nemko, Ph.D. (Contributing Editor, Careers, U.S. News & World Report) gives expert video advice on: How do I become an editor?; How do I become a fundraiser?; Why is a career as a "landscape architect" cool? and more...

Well, a genomics biologist is the modern-day most important biologist of all. In coding the human genome we find that there are only, much fewer than we expected, twenty-three thousand genes; that's all we're made up of. Due to the fact that there are only twenty-three thousand genes we've got to really understand. It's a very targetable number. We're going to be looking at what gene is resulting in expressing what behaviours, in other words, what gene causes what thing in the human body. The scientists who are working on that will result in curing cancer, heart disease, increasing longevity, maybe increasing our intelligence, or certainly curing things like depression, which are largely found to be physiological. So, a genomics biologist is the scientist who is working on those things. You don't think of a biologist anymore as playing with furry animals and all this large stuff. It's all about math and molecules and stuff like that. I think, probably if I had to bet on one career that was going to make a bigger difference in people's lives over the coming decade, it is genomic biology.