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Senior scientist, biology vs assistant research scientist

The differences between senior scientists, biology and assistant research scientists can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a senior scientist, biology, becoming an assistant research scientist takes usually requires 1-2 years. Additionally, a senior scientist, biology has an average salary of $88,965, which is higher than the $62,780 average annual salary of an assistant research scientist.

The top three skills for a senior scientist, biology include data analysis, cell biology and next-generation sequencing. The most important skills for an assistant research scientist are research projects, data collection, and data analysis.

Senior scientist, biology vs assistant research scientist overview

Senior Scientist, BiologyAssistant Research Scientist
Yearly salary$88,965$62,780
Hourly rate$42.77$30.18
Growth rate17%17%
Number of jobs50,06188,786
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 57%Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Average age4138
Years of experience42

What does a senior scientist, biology do?

A senior biology scientist is responsible for studying how living organisms relate to the environment. Duties and responsibilities include supporting and participating in project management and research and development meetings, conducting tissue culture and cell line generation, and performing binding assays to examine the biological activities of protein therapeutics. In addition, you will be participating in the organic synthesis of nucleotide drug and perform reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction procedure for gene expression and amplification.

What does an assistant research scientist do?

An Assistant Research Scientist assists in planning, conducting, and analyzing various research projects. They also order and manage lab inventory, materials, and equipment.

Senior scientist, biology vs assistant research scientist salary

Senior scientists, biology and assistant research scientists have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Scientist, BiologyAssistant Research Scientist
Average salary$88,965$62,780
Salary rangeBetween $56,000 And $139,000Between $43,000 And $89,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaMassachusetts
Best paying companyTheranosUniversity of California
Best paying industryPharmaceuticalEducation

Differences between senior scientist, biology and assistant research scientist education

There are a few differences between a senior scientist, biology and an assistant research scientist in terms of educational background:

Senior Scientist, BiologyAssistant Research Scientist
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 57%Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Most common majorBiologyBiology
Most common collegeUniversity of Southern CaliforniaHarvard University

Senior scientist, biology vs assistant research scientist demographics

Here are the differences between senior scientists, biology' and assistant research scientists' demographics:

Senior Scientist, BiologyAssistant Research Scientist
Average age4138
Gender ratioMale, 49.7% Female, 50.3%Male, 55.6% Female, 44.4%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 6.4% Unknown, 4.1% Hispanic or Latino, 9.7% Asian, 26.3% White, 53.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%Black or African American, 8.6% Unknown, 6.0% Hispanic or Latino, 15.3% Asian, 16.7% White, 52.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.0%
LGBT Percentage8%8%

Differences between senior scientist, biology and assistant research scientist duties and responsibilities

Senior scientist, biology example responsibilities.

  • Manage study protocols and study conduct, intimately involve in the toxicology and pharmacokinetic study protocol development process.
  • Contribute to a cancer cell line profiling effort.
  • Review documentation, write research reports and authore FDA submissions.
  • Cloned and express zebrafish DNA repair genes by PCR; design PCR primers.
  • Supervise transfer of methodology from GLP to GMP environment and between partner/CRO sites.
  • Investigate plant-microbe interactions using protein profiling experiments.
  • Show more

Assistant research scientist example responsibilities.

  • Lead a group of four employees in optimizing DNA purification technologies for production DNA sequencing.
  • Evaluate patients' study eligibility via medical history, obtain informed consent, enroll patients, and achieve enrollment quotas.
  • Experience in SAS programming in biomedical research.
  • Prepare salivary samples for Cortisol ELISA assays.
  • Gather and code quantitative and qualitative data using SPSS and Atlas.ti.
  • Standardize assays to elucidate the mechanism of action of lead molecules.
  • Show more

Senior scientist, biology vs assistant research scientist skills

Common senior scientist, biology skills
  • Data Analysis, 9%
  • Cell Biology, 9%
  • Next-Generation Sequencing, 6%
  • Cell-Based Assays, 5%
  • RNA, 5%
  • CMC, 4%
Common assistant research scientist skills
  • Research Projects, 8%
  • Data Collection, 7%
  • Data Analysis, 6%
  • Lab Equipment, 4%
  • Cell Culture, 4%
  • Chemistry, 4%

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