Biomedical Chemist Licensing and Certification

Will you need licensing to work as a biomedical chemist? Not necessarily, but the legalities depend on the municipality where you live as well as on your particular job duties. Some states do license laboratory workers. The American Association for Clinical Chemistry can help you stay current on legislature. The American Board of Clinical Chemistry is a certification agency for doctoral level chemists and a potential resource. Voluntary certification requires education, professional experience, and a good ethics background.

If you will be working with human subjects, or involved in projects that use human subjects, you will need to have training in the legalities and ethics. If you have a doctorate degree and you want to work as a principal researcher under some program that is receiving federal funds, you will need certification for this role. The NIH Office of Human Subjects Research is one resource for legalities; the Office for Human Research Protections is another. Even if you aren’t mandated by the federal government to have certification, it may be to your advantage. Indeed, it may be required by the institution you work for. There are different levels of certification, beginning with associate level. The educational requirements for this are lower, so your experience may qualify you while you are still a student. There are multiple certifying agencies including the Association of Clinical Research Professionals and the Society of Clinical Research Associates.