Biology vs Medical Research

My world is another planet that has the equivalent of 1930s or 1940s technology, plus a few unique bits of tech, sort of dieselpunk. The MC is attending university at first, and she excels at science, particularly biology. Eventually, she gets her doctorate in biology and then joins the military (during a world war) and is put to work as a medical researcher, mainly making bioweapons out of lethal viruses. In her spare time, she prefers to work on creating vaccines, antibiotics, anesthesias, painkillers, and other means of helping injured or sick soldiers.

Now, according to the research I did before starting the novel, this is all perfectly feasible. However, one of my beta-readers just called me on it, saying that biology isn't the same as medical science, so if my MC specializes in biology, she wouldn't be working with drugs and viruses. But when I looked up the different branches of science, it seemed like medical research fell under the heading of "biology," so now I'm confused.

I want the MC to keep doing what she's doing, I just need to make sure I call it the right thing. Things aren't very advanced on her world (they've only just invented antibiotics), and I suppose it's possible they might categorize things differently than we do. But the male MC is from a highly advanced civilization (he crashed on her planet several years before), so if things are backwards on this world, he needs to comment on it, so the reader doesn't get confused.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Okay, so I was on the right track. Good to know! She definitely doesn't want to be a physician. She's not interested in treating patients, just working with research medicine, creating drugs, vaccines, and the like. I mentioned other types of science classes she's taken, like chemistry, but I'll add a few more advanced ones, just to round things out.

She isn't specializing in virus biology at university, that's something the military pulls her into after she graduates with her doctorate. She prefers helping people, so she's more interested in vaccines, antibiotics, and the like, but the military wants "practical" applications for her work, so they set her to creating bioweapons out of viruses. She's very intelligent, quick to learn, and constantly reading science textbooks, so I don't see a problem with her dabbling in related fields of science. The only thing is, the university isn't super advanced, so I don't know if they'd even offer a degree in virus biology, or whichever field vaccines and medicines would be in. She might have to get her doctorate in just plain biology or perhaps "medical biology" (is that a thing?) and then specialize on her own.

As far as testing, she uses mice and rats. She has a bunch that she keeps in her basement laboratory, plus a whole room full at the base where she works. The government is military oriented, so whatever the military wants, they get, even in wartime.

I'll look up about immortal cell cultures. That's something I've never heard of, so I'll definitely research it to see if it'll work with this story. (Of course, 75% of the elements in this story are things I'm unfamiliar with. I swear, it's taking on a life of its own, going in directions I never imagined!)

Thanks for those links, I'll check them out!

On this world, women are a bit more equal to men than on our world in the comparative time frame. Her country is militaristic, but vaguely socialistic or communistic in nature. Everyone is given the same education, at least at first, along with an equal chance to pass or fail. Those who fail their exams are assigned as unskilled laborers on farms, sewage plants, or whatever. Those who pass are given additional education in the field of their choice. Those who are able to keep up are allowed to get doctorates, but most stop with a lesser degree. The female MC is pretty brilliant at science, but she has a learning disability (dyscalculia (numbers dyslexia)), so she needs extra mathematics tutoring in order to pass. She keeps this hidden from the state, because anyone with a learning disability is automatically disqualified for education--after all, why waste resources trying to teach someone who's unable to learn? A backwards view, to be sure, but it fits with the government I'm trying to portray.

As far as doing labwork at home, she isn't working on anything too advanced. I was thinking of maybe having her try to develop contraceptive pills in her spare time, along with some antibiotic research, but she wouldn't be working on bioweapons or anything dangerous. Her house has a fully equipped laboratory in the basement. It's actually a plot point, because the male MC needs to work on repairing his ship's AI systems, basically creating a microprocessor, which he doesn't dare work on at the university's labs, since it's seriously advanced technology that no one on this world has ever dreamed of yet. He can't risk them finding out. To help him, the female MC finds a house that once belonged to a scientist who built a lab in the basement. No one else wants to buy a house with a laboratory in the basement, so she's able to afford it. They move into the house together, as roommates. It's hard for her, because she's in love with this guy, but she knows that once he finishes repairing his ship, he'll leave her world and she'll never see him again. So it's a very unselfish act, buying this house for him.

I haven't thought much about patent laws or that sort of thing. I think I mentioned in one of the early chapters that anything developed at the university's lab automatically belongs to the university, or at least, they would get a portion of any profits made from it, so the MCs don't want to work on anything important there. (It's another reason to buy the house with the basement laboratory.) I'm quite sure the military would claim anything she developed at the research lab. So if she's going to come up with contraceptives or anything like that, it'll have to be on her own time, at home. The military might try to claim her work anyway, but she'd have a good defense, since she didn't develop them at work.