[timroy]

Thanks for the advice, that all sounds right to me. I particularly like the point about the $TOPIC of the moment.

The roll-your-own-company lab approach sounds a little better, overall. One tricky thing is that I'd have a lot more credibility starting a biotech company with a Ph.D. Right now I'm considering a Ph.D. to get the training and credibility (union card, as someone else said). Still not a slam dunk, though - Transcriptic's founder just has a bachelor's.