Inquiring Minds

How do you become a scientist? Ask anyone in the profession and you'll probably hear some version of the following: get a Bachelor's of Science degree, work in a lab, get into a PhD program, publish some papers, get a good post-doctoral position, publish some more papers and then apply for a tenure-track job at a large university. It's a long road—and you get to spend those 10 to 15 years as a poor graduate student or underpaid postdoc, while you watch your peers launch careers, start families, and contribute to their 401(k) plans.And then comes the academic job market. According to Brandeis University biochemist Dr. Gregory Petsko, who recently chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee on the postdoctoral experience in the US, less than 20 percent of aspiring postdocs today get highly coveted jobs in academia. That's less than one in five. Naturally, many more end up in industry, in government, and in many other sectors—but not the one they were trained for or probably hoping for. "We're fond of