Careers in the life sciences: a map for students and career changers

People who like biology often assume there are two jobs on offer: scientist or doctor. The real map is much wider. A cell therapy dose that reaches a patient has passed through the hands of a research associate who first grew the cells, an engineer who scaled the method up, a technician in a clean room gown, a quality analyst who tested the batch, a regulatory specialist who described it to the FDA and a research coordinator who booked the patient's visit. Most of those people do not hold a PhD.

This page sorts the main roles by where they sit, what the first rung requires and what the day involves, for students choosing a degree and adults wondering whether their skills transfer.

Where the jobs are

Academic and institute labs

University labs run on research technicians, lab managers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, with a principal investigator setting the direction. A technician with a bachelor's degree typically runs experiments, keeps cell lines alive, orders supplies and maintains records. Core facilities (flow cytometry, genomics, imaging) hire specialists who run shared instruments for dozens of groups. Pay tends to trail industry; the trade is broad training and a chance to be named on papers.

Hospitals and academic medical centers

Clinical research coordinators run the day-to-day of clinical trials at a hospital or clinic. They screen patients against eligibility criteria, schedule visits, enter data, ship samples and keep regulatory files ready for the sponsor's monitors.

Cell therapy laboratory technologists staff the hospital's cell processing lab. That lab receives stem cell collections for transplant, counts and tests them, freezes them in liquid nitrogen and thaws them on the transplant team's schedule. Such programs are commonly accredited by FACT, the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy, which means detailed procedures and heavy documentation.

Cord blood bank technicians process donated umbilical cord blood: reducing its volume, counting cells, running tests and storing units in cryogenic freezers so that transplant centers can find them through donor registries. The methods behind isolation, expansion and freezing are covered in our stem cell technology explainer.

Medical laboratory scientists, also called clinical laboratory technologists, run the hospital's diagnostic tests, from blood counts to microbiology cultures. This is the largest group of hospital lab jobs and has the clearest credential path on this page.

Biotech and pharmaceutical companies

Industry roles split roughly three ways: making the product, proving it is safe and works, and getting it approved and sold.

Research associates do discovery and preclinical work: assays, cell culture, animal study support and data analysis. A bachelor's or master's degree is the usual entry; PhD holders tend to start at the scientist level.

Process development teams take a method that works in a flask and make it work at scale, every time. Engineers sit here alongside biologists.

Manufacturing technicians, also called process technicians or GMP operators, produce material under current good manufacturing practice. That means gowning into clean rooms, following a batch record step by step and documenting every action. Shifts and weekends are common. For an hour by hour picture, read a day in a cell therapy manufacturing lab.

Quality control analysts test raw materials and finished batches for sterility, endotoxin, identity, cell counts and potency. Quality assurance staff do not test. They review records, investigate deviations, run audits and decide whether a batch is released. QC suits people who like bench work; QA suits people who like documents and systems.

Regulatory affairs specialists prepare submissions to the FDA and other agencies, from the first investigational new drug application to the marketing application, and keep the product compliant afterward.

Clinical operations covers clinical trial managers and clinical research associates (CRAs), who monitor trial sites on behalf of the sponsor. Many CRAs started out as site coordinators.

Medical science liaisons are field-based scientific experts who discuss published data with physicians. Most hold a PharmD, PhD or MD.

Business development staff find, evaluate and negotiate licensing deals and partnerships. They usually pair a science degree with an MBA or finance experience. Our piece on moving from the bench to the business side of biotech covers how scientists make that switch.

Roles at a glance

Certifications worth knowing about

A recurring surprise for newcomers: most of these credentials require experience first. They help you move up. Few of them get you the first job.

In the clinical laboratory, the ASCP Board of Certification (American Society for Clinical Pathology) awards the Medical Laboratory Scientist credential, MLS(ASCP), and the Medical Laboratory Technician credential, MLT(ASCP). The standard MLS route is a bachelor's degree plus an accredited MLS program; other routes combine a degree with documented clinical lab experience, and there is a route for military lab training. Some states also license laboratory personnel. BLS notes that requirements vary by state.

In clinical research, ACRP (the Association of Clinical Research Professionals) runs the Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (CCRC) exam. It asks for 3,000 hours of paid, verifiable work in human subject research, and internships or coursework do not count toward that total. SoCRA (the Society of Clinical Research Associates) awards the Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP), most commonly after two years of full-time clinical research work within the previous five. Nearly every site and sponsor also requires Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training, which is a training record, not a professional certification.

In regulatory and quality work, RAPS (the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society) offers the Regulatory Affairs Certification in drug and device versions, generally after a bachelor's degree and three years of regulatory or related experience. ASQ's Certified Pharmaceutical GMP Professional asks for five years of relevant experience.

What the pay data says

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes median wages for broad occupations, not for job titles such as "research associate" or "medical science liaison." These are the closest matches, as median annual wages for May 2025 from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook:

• Biological technicians: $57,510. Typical entry education: bachelor's degree.
• Clinical laboratory technologists and technicians: $62,930. Bachelor's for technologists; some technician jobs accept an associate's degree.
• Medical scientists: $103,410. Doctoral or professional degree.
• Biochemists and biophysicists: $127,410. Doctoral or professional degree.

A median means half earn more and half less, and starting pay sits below it. BLS does not track clinical research coordinators, regulatory specialists or business development staff as separate occupations, so we leave those out rather than guess.

Ways in

Internships and research programs

The NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education runs the Summer Internship Program, which places high school, college, graduate and professional students with NIH investigators for eight to ten weeks. Its Postbaccalaureate IRTA program gives recent graduates (generally within three years of the bachelor's degree) one or two years of full-time research at NIH, a common step before graduate or medical school.

The National Science Foundation funds summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates at universities. Companies run their own internships and co-ops, especially in QC and manufacturing, and those often turn into offers.

Many academic medical centers also hold NIH funding through the CTSA Program, a network of more than 60 institutions supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. These hubs employ coordinators, data managers and regulatory staff, so their job boards are worth watching.

Community college biomanufacturing programs

Manufacturing is the part of the industry most open to people without a four-year degree. North Carolina's BioWork certificate is a well-known example: a single course of a few months, offered through community colleges across the state, covering current good manufacturing practice, aseptic processing, process control and basic microbiology, aimed at process technician jobs. Other states with biomanufacturing clusters have their own certificates and associate degrees in biotechnology. Before enrolling, ask the college which local employers hire its graduates.

Moving over from another career

Some backgrounds map onto life science roles more directly than people expect:

• Nurses and medical assistants often move into clinical research coordination, and later into monitoring or trial management.
• Military lab technicians have a dedicated ASCP certification route.
• Chemical, mechanical and process engineers fit process development, validation and manufacturing engineering.
• Workers from food, chemical or other regulated plants already know shift work, standard operating procedures and audits, which transfers to GMP manufacturing.
• People from finance or law sometimes enter through business development or contracts.

Hiring managers across all of these look for documentation discipline, and for the vocabulary: GLP for preclinical studies, GMP for manufacturing, GCP for clinical trials. More career pieces sit under life sciences careers.

Before you pick a first job

Job titles hide very different days. One QC analyst spends the week at a bench; another reviews data at a desk. Before accepting an offer, ask how many hours a week the role spends gowned in a clean room, at a bench, at a desk and on calls. The answers differ more between employers than salaries do, and they predict whether you will still enjoy the work a year in.