Hello!
I am in the middle of applying to PhD programs for immunology/infectious disease, and I had a harrowing conversation with my research advisor today. She said that immunology is extremely expensive, competitive, difficult to acquire meaningful results in, and considered by some to have already peaked/past its golden age. She herself is trying to switch fields.

Granted, I work in allergy studies (a small branch of immunology) but this statement from a reliable resource merits some consideration leap into 5-6 year commitment that not even the head of my laboratory will endorse. I was wondering if anyone had any career advice. Specifically:

What are the most competitive fields of biology?
What are the most well-funded fields in biology?
Any immunologists (ore people in related fields like microbiology, virology or infectious disease studies) care to defend the field as “not dead yet”?

Any and all feedback is appreciated.

I can't answer your questions specifically but I can tell you that all fields are competitive in that they require hard work, long hours and the very best candidates. I would think that immunology or anything to do with infectious diseases is still very topical - I don't think we are close to solving these issues yet! I work in plant health rather than human health though so my opinion doesn't come from studying your field. I've certainly never heard any of my plant microbiology or virology colleagues stating the field is dead though!

I would tell you to do whatever it is that interests you - even if the field is super competitive - someone has to win, may as well be you.

Hi there,

I work in a multidisciplinary project, so I ll say what I 've noticed (maybe not representative).... so, it came to my attention that one study on infectious disease costed so much money (they were doing DNA sequencing).

However, microbiology is definitely not dead, especially when you work with other disciplines like environmental health/ building science investigations. It is actually cutting edge (qPCR and ELISA for fungi and bacteria, allergens, fatty acids, plasticizes, MVOCs).

Anyway, what is important now is to see what you CAN do with the money and the lab you have.

Microbiology and virology are not dead! Look at fields like synthetic microbiology and see if anything catches your interest there.