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"Some of our members are interested in technological developments and designs that advance systems biology, while others are interested only in the research application of systems biology itself," says OISB Director Daniel Figeys.

"Because the discipline of mathematical biology is still young and constantly developing, there are great opportunities for young scientists to contribute to the field if they are willing to learn, communicate, and think outside the box."

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

When chemists, biochemists, and pharmacologists have to work together they often discover that their different backgrounds are a source of communication problems.

By focusing my career on teaching, would I be marked forever as a second-rate scientist?

"Undergraduates should get experience in a lab, the field, or a museum, to see if that sort of research suits them." --Scott Edwards

"If some significant fraction of the NIH budget is going to large-scale projects, and a substantial fraction of each project's budget goes into informatics, that translates into a lot of jobs." --David States, professor of bioinformatics, University of Washington

"Opportunities in mathematical biology are now excellent."

"I have always had an interest in trying to apply my mathematics to help mankind as best I could." --Abdul-Aziz Yakubu

Synthetic biologist Ron Weiss has moved from programming computers to programming cells.

Graduating PGCC students go on to pursue a variety of occupations.

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

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."