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"The focus isn’t because this is cheap. In fact logistically, it’s quite a challenge to do this. Whether you’re AstraZeneca, or Roche, or Novartis, you have to pay quite a bit to have that presence. Our focus is to have a presence in China, for China, and for the rest of Asia." --John Ramsey, AstraZeneca

The field is rife with opportunities to improve human health and to take part in the inevitable health-care revolution.

HHMI’s grants, for example, provide "an opportunity to do your work where you might not otherwise be able to get the funding you need," says Conley.

"He was there less than 2 minutes, and he ended up with permanent reduction in his vision." --Denis Sapiro, Occupational Health and Safety Office, University of Washington, Seattle

"If you're young and you want a job that involves very intriguing research in industry, you might have to create the company that allows you to do it." --George Whitesides

Aside from radiation, few U.S. organizations have policies regarding pregnant lab workers, which means women are on their own when it comes to worrying about exposure during pregnancy.

Systems biology seeks to connect the dots between molecular data. It's a hot career field, but success requires making connections between disciplines.

"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.

"As soon as some conference deadline comes up, you see us working like maniacs to finish … papers, just like we did when we were in school." --Henrique Malvar, the director of Microsoft's Redmond research lab

"Nothing panned out for years, but [the techniques] did come to fruition. You have to make the investment." --Andrea Ghez

I knew a little molecular biology, but I had no notion of what you could do experimentally. It reminded me of electronics, the idea that you had these tools to splice things together in an ordered way, that you could reengineer things in the cell to do something else. --Mark Goulian

"You cannot do one project. You have to do a number of projects to try to get to the answer, hoping one of the approaches will work out." --Yimin Zou

"I had the good sense to have a serious accident when the market was down." --Cynthia Robbins-Roth

"Because I was still passionate about this, I stuck through it and managed to keep it running with lots of help from some very good people. Now I have quite a bit of business experience." --Lee Jensen

"This is an environment where everyone is considered and assumed to be a responsible, engaged adult until proven otherwise. You do what you have to do to get the job done." -Holly Butler

Give your students skills, not just stories.

The specter of such enormous destruction would, you might think, create good job prospects for scientists interested in that sort of thing. But just like the rumored 'big one' it aims to predict, the boom in earthquake-science careers hasn't happened yet.

"When we have a question, it doesn't matter what it is, they answer it. It's a complete exchange of information … they've essentially opened up all their technology to us."

--Marc Donohue

Malik goes to seminars to learn not just what they're doing, but how they're approaching questions. "It's really exciting to see how this person went about developing the story and making these connections . . . It's really useful to see how a scientific mind thinks about a particular problem."

"It would be really heartbreaking to spend 18 days doing work in the submersible and get back home to the lab only to find out you screwed up. I've seen it happen a lot." - Craig Cary