A high degree of intellectual curiosity and willingness to devote your life to continuing study and unraveling the mysteries of how chemicals can beneficially affect the quality of life are hallmarks of these professionals. Pharmaceutical research scientists specialize in the research and development of new drugs and medicines to combat both chronic and acute illnesses and improve debilitating physical and mental conditions.

Thousands of pharmaceutical research firms, government agencies, healthcare research and university medical centers offer employment opportunities for scientists with a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in one of the related sciences of chemistry and biology. These jobs exist in the US and around the world. Asked to visualize the research scientist at work, many people would conjure up the image of a driven individual in a white coat, alone in a dungeon-like laboratory, surrounded by beakers and tubes of bubbling chemicals. For a number of reasons, this picture is far from accurate.

A picture of today's scientist is more likely that of a highly-trained man or woman, working with a team of other dedicated scientists in a well-equipped, brightly-lit laboratory where computers and technology are tools of the trade. These scientists are working in the challenging and rewarding field of pharmaceutical research. Pharmaceutical research is the intense and deliberate pursuit of new chemical combinations that yield drugs with a safe and effective medical application in treating illness and disease. Whether taken internally or applied to the skin, these pharmacological products are intended to prevent, cure, or relieve pain and its adverse physical effects.

Over 11,000 private businesses and governmental agencies worldwide spend an estimated $20 billion each year on pharmaceutical research. Most of this effort is targeted at human ailments, although a significant portion is devoted to the health of animals, particularly pets and agricultural livestock. Pharmaceutical research is an area of pharmacology, a science which explores the effects of drugs on biological systems. It is important to differentiate between the two, however, because pharmacological research also deals with the effects of herbicides and pesticides, while pharmaceutical research focuses on medications.

We rarely think about the origin of the pills, elixirs and capsules that relieve our aches and pains, reduce our fevers, and eradicate infections, but all of us owe a debt of gratitude to the highly-skilled pharmaceutical researchers. Their intensive efforts and dedication have brought a wide array of medical products to market, most of them in the past 40 years alone. Many illnesses and diseases that once meant weeks of pain, if recovery was even possible, have been reduced to the level of inconvenience by modern science. Researchers are now striving to do the same for such leading causes of death as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and AIDS.

These are the areas of research which currently receive the most intensive pharmaceutical effort.

The research process can take several approaches. For example, the polio vaccine was developed from intensive research focused on finding a cure for that specific disease. Other drugs may be discovered in a sort of laboratory serendipity, when researchers are pursuing a different theory entirely, but their efforts yield promising results that take the research in a different, yet fruitful direction. While there is a high degree of order and control in scientific experimentation, it is a known fact that many of the world's most useful discoveries occurred while researchers were intent on creating or formulating something else entirely.

Another category of drug discoveries is linked to past research that had appeared to yield no results until additional information and technology became available. Scientists may study previous treatments and improve upon them. As you can see, research benefits from both past mistakes and current knowledge.