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Biotechnology Research Assistants

History

Assistants have been around for as long as people have worked, and the first time a worker sent an assistant out to gather information, the job of research assistant was born. Although the job of the research assistant has changed little since the early days, the tools used to gather information have changed dramatically. An assistant to a doctor a century ago would have had to travel to libraries and other information centers to gather data on a disease from books and then laboriously take down notes to take back to the doctor. Advances in science and technology have led assistants to specialize in various fields, such as biotechnology. Nowadays, research assistants do Internet or database searches and sometimes access specialized resources dedicated to their field. As technology becomes more advanced, research assistants will have the convenience of using new methods to complete their research, but they will also bear the burden of having to master the techniques to get the information they need.

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