Cancer Biology Career Opportunities and Marketable Skills
Graduates of the Cancer Biology discipline will be trained to enter any specialized field of modern biomedical science in academia, industry, education, consulting, or medicine. Our graduates typically obtain positions as postdoctoral research fellows in academic, industrial (e.g., biotech or pharmaceutical), or government research laboratories before pursuing their first independent professional positions. Students who have completed their training have moved on to positions as postdoctoral fellows and research scientists at institutions across the country, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Typical employment outcomes for our graduates include:
- Research and/or teaching faculty positions at a major university or medical school
- Research scientist in a biotech or pharmaceutical company
- Research scientist at a government or military research laboratory
Non-research-intensive career outcomes may include:
- College-level teaching
- Scientific publishing
- Science policy, management and administration
- Academic administration
- Patent law
- Science journalism, and many more
The field of Cancer Biology research is always growing. A good employment resource is the American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Careers.
Marketable Skills
The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences is proud to partner with the Texas Higher Education Board in helping students develop and build on skills employers value and seek out in job candidates.
PhD in Integrated Biomedical Sciences:
1. Management of Existing Research Data & Information
Identify, evaluate, integrate and interpret large quantities of information applicable to a given problem from multiple sources including the scientific literature and relevant databases.
2. Project Development & Successful Execution
Manage a research endeavor from intellectual conceptualization to successful timely completion.
3. Analysis & Problem-Solving
Identify and define gaps in scientific knowledge; and then gather information from across the biomedical sciences to synthesize experimental approaches for testing hypotheses designed to fill those gaps.
4. Professional Collaboration
Identify opportunities to collaborate with others to strengthen experimental strategies for achieving common goals.
5. Effective Work Habits
Work with minimum supervision toward research goals and satisfying other program requirements; develop time-management and organizational skills that allow “multi-tasking” and to meet deadlines.
6. Oral Communication
Present effectively, in various venues, complex research problems and solutions to audiences of varied levels of experience and expertise.
7. Defense of Ideas - Oral
Develop oral skills of debating ideas based on scientific facts so as to defend particular interpretations and conclusions.
8. Written Communication
Write clear concise descriptions of research problems, experimental design and results so as to effectively support interpretations and conclusions.
The Office of Career Development
UT Health San Antonio graduate students have access to the GSBS Office of Career Development (OCD). The OCD provides career and professional development training opportunities including individual meetings/career counseling, workshops & seminars. The OCD also works with the Graduate School’s Career Advisory Council and provides career exploration talks. The OCD provides graduate students a framework to discover next steps in their career along with resources to encourage and prepare graduate students for the future.
