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"Generally, I find that people are attracted to enthusiasm if it's unfettered and for the right reasons," says Hendrik Poinar, director of McMaster University's Ancient DNA Laboratory.

"I like to move very fast and take a lot of risks compared to the traditional Swedish way."

--Mohammed Homman

"This choice was more practical because you try to build up a career, and if you do what people are already doing, you need to be very good, but also lucky, to make it," says Edwin Cuppen.

“I’d like to be here [longer]. But now my wife and my baby are in Japan, so I have to go back.”

Azevedo strongly advises other postdocs to start applying even if they feel it is too early in their career.

"It's easy to find things that work. But to produce them on a large scale and market [them], it's a whole new thing, and it requires a lot more expertise that maybe in-house researchers just don't have," says Hélène Chaisson, Vice-President of Research and Development, Codena.

"The most important concept you have to remember is that technology doesn't mean you have a company." Says Roger Bernier, Vice-President of Foragen Technologies Management.

Beyond the challenges, provided one is aware of the rules of the game, leaving academia doesn't need to be a one-way street--and may provide the opportunity to gain valuable skills.

"I think it's very important when you're young, not to put limits on yourself," says [Celine] Ster.

"Cases very soon demonstrated a great capacity for working with software and developing systems, a capacity that is unfortunately quite exceptional in experimental biologists." --Systems biologist Alfonso Valencia.

Cosma encourages young scientists from nations like Italy not to become oppressed by their national systems, to believe in themselves and what they can achieve, and to be willing to move abroad to achieve their full potential.

"It is definitely an asset to work with more than one system. It opens us up to different ways of thinking and keeps us flexible and less likely to sink into dogma. The differences in how the various systems are wired are as important as the similarities." --Sabeeha Merchant, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Ensuring a successful postdoctoral appointment and using the experience to launch a solid career require careful preparation. Scientists who responded to this year's postdoctoral survey, sponsored by
Science Careers, outline strategies based on their personal histories.

The 2007 version of Science
’s annual survey of Top Employers features a tight race for first place among three companies. It also reveals the key ingredient for all successful employers: a commitment to innovative thinking throughout the product pipeline, from the laboratory to the clinic or marketplace.

This year's survey of top employers in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries has a familiar winner but plenty of shifting among other places in the top 20. The leading companies highlight a consistent theme: the importance of strong basic science as the platform on which to build reputations and commercial success.

The most important factors for ensuring a successful postdoctoral experience are honest and open communication with mentors, according to postdoc supervisors who responded to a survey carried out for Science
Careers. Here, they provide some strategies and tips for effective communication and for teaching graduates how to communicate better.

Psychologists share tips for figuring out what's sapping your enthusiasm—and how to get it back.

The agency has updated its grant proposal guide, but its new use of "products" in the biosketch, in place of publications, is ambiguous.

Forgoing alarmist pronouncements, a National Academies committee makes sensible suggestions about how to address the workforce needs of the Department of Defense.

Many Spanish trainees have been forced to start their doctorates without financial help.