Training as a geneticist or genomicist today involves mastering a lot more than the mendelian ratios, central dogma and population equations of times past. Not only has the conceptual focus shifted from genes to genomes, but that change has added the new realm of bioinformatics. As a result, today's genetic scientists have skill sets that dwarf those of their mentors.
"Back in my day, the ability to manipulate a large amount of data was only for population geneticists. No longer. Molecular geneticists do this today too," says Joann Boughman, executive vice-president of the American Society of Human Genetics in Bethesda, Maryland.
Over the past few years, familiarity with, if not expertise in, bioinformatics has become not just desirable, but expected. "Classical and molecular genetics are still part of the training, but it is hard to believe that anyone with a PhD in genetics nowadays would not also have a background in bioinformatics," says Richard Gregory, director of research at Genzyme in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After half a century of single-gene quests, the ability to sequence genomes has reframed research in the much broader context of gene interactions. But the distinction between geneticist and genomicist remains fuzzy and perhaps artificial, for the two titles represent a continuum that differs more in scope than skills. "I think of genetics as disease-gene hunts," says Claire Fraser, president and director of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. "That's never been what we do at TIGR. We look at whole genomes and do comparative analyses." Since TIGR's debut in 1992, researchers there have sequenced the genomes of more than 200 species.
Growth factors
Whether the job is to investigate the 1,200 variations on the cystic fibrosis gene theme, or the billions of bases of the wombat genome, the challenge when the sequencing and assembling ends is the same: how to extract the most useful information from the data. Colin Hill, chief executive of the biotech company Gene Network Sciences in Ithaca, New York, fittingly calls the new breed of scientist who can do this a "true hybrid".
GENE NETWORK SCIENCES
Colin Hill: the new breed of scientist is a true hybrid.
For those who can both churn out data and analyse them in a way that solves problems, career opportunities are diverse and growing. They range from working with families who have a genetic disease, to developing strategies to control insect pests, to identifying disaster victims, to improving the pop in popcorn.
Whatever the new hybrid eventually comes to be called, the job market is expanding fast. For example, the Austrian Genome Research Programme is beginning phase two of its nine-year effort to foster public–private partnerships, with a goal of launching 30 biotech and genomics companies. The programme anticipates that the number of jobs in genomics will quintuple in the next decade.
On a more global level, there is the special programme for research and training in tropical diseases, or TDR: a collaboration among UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations and the World Bank. TDR seeks expertise in parasite genomes and bioinformatics as part of its new 'portfolio of putative drug targets' programme, according to Solomon Nwaka, manager of genomic and discovery research at the WHO in Geneva. And at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, a new programme that embraces genomics will establish links between agriculture and health.
Many academic institutions and medical centres are spinning off programmes with a genomics/bioinformatics bent. Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, seeks cell biologists with a genomics approach for a new institute, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York is recruiting faculty members for its new Integrated Genetics and Systems Biology Initiative. At the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, Scotland, established research groups are growing and new ones forming in vast and expanding areas such as the control of gene expression, which uses microarray technology to track protein production in cells.
Undergraduate and graduate education recognize the new hybrid too. At Cook College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the biotechnology programme integrates genetics with the fields it has spawned.
"Students take biochemistry, organic chemistry, genetics both classical and molecular, and also bioinformatics, biostatistics and bioethics," says Cook curriculum coordinator Barbara Zilinskas. "We also offer courses in regulatory matters, intellectual property and communications." Graduates have had remarkable success in the job market. "It is a good time for young people with a BS or PhD, who are smart and well-trained, to secure jobs in biotechnology, particularly related to human medicine," she adds. At the graduate level, the University of Pennsylvania offers a PhD in genomics and computational biology.
The picture isn't quite so rosy for agricultural biotechnology, perhaps because of the movement against genetically modified organisms, Zilinskas says. Still, Syngenta, one of the half-dozen large companies that dominate agricultural biotechnology, is hiring plant geneticists, according to Anne Burt, spokeswoman for the company, based in Basel, Switzerland. And the UK agricultural group Cargill of Cobham, Surrey, seeks scientists with PhDs in molecular genetics, genomics or related fields to identify valuable gene variants and introduce them into crop plants.
Eclectic opportunities
Non-academic jobs in genetics have traditionally been in the healthcare and agricultural sectors, but the evolution to genomics has expanded those areas and catalysed the formation of new ones. For example, a clinical geneticist requires an MD and residency, but PhD scientists will increasingly be tapped to educate the medical community, says Boughman. Family doctors, paediatricians and specialists in internal medicine need to understand genetic predispositions in a different way, and know more about genetics and calculating risk, she says.
WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INST.
Julian Parkhill: the most important aspect is biological interpretation.
Genetic-testing laboratories are experiencing a boom that reflects soaring public interest, thanks to awareness of genetic components of common disorders, a growing interest in family history, and widespread use of forensic tests in the aftermath of disasters. Myriad Genetics in Salt Lake City, Utah, for example, hires research associates with bachelor's or master's degrees to isolate, amplify and sequence DNA for genetic and forensic tests. Demand is so high that they run 'graveyard shifts' overnight for those who don't mind extracting DNA in the wee hours. For scientists with superb people skills, another position is women's health account executives. They educate physicians about the company's tests for inherited cancers. And Sorenson Genomics, also of Salt Lake City, has spun off business units to satisfy the public's thirst for information — GeneTree to track relationships and ethnicity, and Relative Genetics for geneaology. Both target the consumer, says Terry Carmichael, vice-president of marketing and sales. The company hires MS and PhD geneticists.
Genetics/genomics transcends humans, and that's where the need for the new hybrid is greatest — comparative genomics, the raison d'être at TIGR. Fraser has witnessed TIGR's workforce evolve over the past decade. "Early on we had a small cadre of people who built our bioinformatics capability, and they trained everyone. That's not the case anymore. People come in with that level of expertise, because they've had to use it in their training," she says.
At the Pathogen Sequencing Unit within the Sanger Institute in Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, scientists at all levels are also highly trained. Technical staff with biology BScs sequence DNA and manipulate data, and PhD-level staff handle the more detailed molecular biology and troubleshooting, says senior investigator Julian Parkhill. Yet expertise in traditional biology is still highly valued — PhDs with postdoc experience in microbiology or parasitology tackle data analysis. "This is necessary because the most important aspect is the biological interpretation of the data in the context of the organism," Parkhill adds.
Beyond biology
A degree in a subject beginning with 'gen-' isn't required to mine genome data. Physical scientists and the computationally inclined are in demand too, taking things full circle to the core of physicists who founded molecular genetics half a century ago. Gene Network Sciences has teams of molecular biologists, mathematicians, theoretical physicists and software engineers. "Drug discovery and development require the ability to process data from the human genome project," Hill explains. "A company like us focuses on computation, but the 'gene' in our name means we are still doing biology."
Expansion beyond biology is also evident in government-sponsored research. The new Chemical Genomics Center of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, for example, seeks chemists to develop small-molecule probes to investigate physiological processes revealed in genome sequences.
The distinctions and limits of the geneticist/genomicist hybrid have not yet fully crystallized. "No two people with a PhD in genomics have the same background, and that is representative of the field," says Fraser. Instead of trying to master the list of '-atics' and '-omics', she concludes, "focus on some aspect of this large, comprehensive field". (See A turf war in genetic counselling?)
A Turf War in Genetic Counselling?
Genetic counsellors help families navigate the maze of genetic testing options. The field began in the 1970s with a focus on rare, single-gene disorders. Since then, genetic counselling, like genetics itself, has diverged and diversified to include more common disorders. But territoriality has emerged, at least in the United States, where most of the 2,200 genetic counsellors have master's degrees in the field and are certified by the American Board of Genetic Counseling.
Because certification isn't required to practice, nurses, social workers and others do so, and some testing companies even replace flesh-and-blood counsellors with pamphlets, videos and websites. That worries Kelly Ormond, who is president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. "For complicated genetic test interpretation it may be useful to consult a genetic counsellor," says Ormond.
Part of the problem is an inaccurate image of the genetic counsellor's role, persisting from the 1970s. "The genetic counsellor has a very narrow scope of practice, specific to single-gene disorders," says Kathleen Calzone, a senior nurse specialist at the National Cancer Institute who helped develop genetics/genomics competencies and curricula for nurses. She adds that nurses who specialize in genetics offer what genetic counsellors do, and more besides.
But Bonnie Liebers, a board-certified senior genetic counsellor at Northeast Health in Albany, New York, disagrees. Specially trained in cancer genetics, she cites testing for the breast-cancer gene BRCA1 as an example. "A patient may get a gene test, but not a four-generation pedigree to determine which of the dozen or so genes that predispose to breast cancer she might have."
R.L.