BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH: AN INSIDER’S GUIDE

1. So Do You Really Want to Pursue Research?
2. What’s in Store: The Brighter Side of Medical Research
3. What’s in Store: The Darker Side of Medical Research
4. One Degree of Separation
5. Choosing and Working with a Mentor
6. Identifying a Research Niche That You Can Call Your Own
7. Useful Definitions
8. The Institutional Review Board: Do’s, Don’ts, and Nevers
9. Animal Care and Use Committees
10. Research Beyond Humans and Vertebrates
11. Hiring Research Staff
12. Strategy and Tactics: Running a Successful Laboratory
13. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Collaboration
14. Writing a Successful Research Paper. I—Up to the Point of Submission
15. Writing a Successful Research Paper. II—Revising, Resubmitting, and Post-Acceptance Tasks
16. Funding: An Overview
17. Where to Apply for Funding: Making the Right Choices
18. Writing a Winning Grant Application
19. Grant Budgeting
20. Grant Writing: Pearls and Lumps of Coal
21. Research Training, Fellowship, and Career Grants
22. Grant Review from the Inside
23. Interpreting Your Reviews
24. To Resubmit or Not Resubmit and How to Do It
25. The Art of a Good Research Presentation
26. Effective Conferencing
27. Networking in the Early Twenty-First Century
28. Conflicts of Interest
29. Scientific Conduct and Misconduct: What Is Right and Proper, What Is Not, and What Is Somewhere in the Middle
30. Article Review and Reading: Being Efficient and Thorough as You Need to Be
31. Patents
32. Working with Industry
33. Jobs in Biomedical Science: Seeking, Landing, and Changing
34. Academic Promotion and Titles
35. On Being a Mentor
36. Yardsticks of Success
37. Research Life Lesson 1: Everything Takes Longer Than You Think, So Plan Accordingly
38. Research Life Lesson 2: A Person’s Research Is Endlessly Important to Him
39. Research Life Lesson 3: Balance, Timing, Cycles, and Seeing the Big Picture
40. Research Life Lesson 4: Your Career Is an Ultramarathon, Not a Sprint
41. Conclusion: Nothing Satisfies Like Meaningful Work

This comprehensive yet concise book introduces people at all levels of training—undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, residents, fellows, and junior faculty—to the basic joys and challenges of biomedical research. By discussing many key research issues, would-be and early-stage academics will not only be better informed about the world of biomedical research, but will learn a basic set of instructions to help jumpstart their careers. Biomedical Research: An Insider’s Guide is divided into five sections. The first focuses on decision points regarding whether or not to enter research and if so what type: basic, clinical, or translational. The second section focuses on the practicalities of pursuing medical research, including institutional review boards and animal care committees as well general suggestions regarding idea generation and collaboration. The third section covers a core aspect of research: writing—detailing the evolution of both grants and papers. The fourth section addresses a range of issues, including conferencing to patents to working with industry to obtaining philanthropic support. The final section deals with all-important broader life issues from job choices to being a mentor to thoughts on how to keep the big picture front and center. An invaluable resource that offers insightful, practical advice, Biomedical Research: An Insider’s Guide reveals how biomedical research can be both challenging and truly rewarding.

Features
• Provides young physicians and scientists a step-by-step guide to launching and sustaining a successful research career
• Includes both “big picture” input on career decision-making and detailed suggestions on how to be a successful researcher
• Most comprehensive text of its kind in the field