Average day - Paperwork, paperwork, and fiddling with viruses.
Education - A shit ton.
Specific Education - Biology, chemistry, virology
Pay - Depends if your a government/college scientist or a working for the industry. If you really want to get into genetic engineering, I'd forget about this. Its an emerging field that as of yet has little application. In other words, you'll be making enough. And thats it.
EDIT:
Hmm... median pay is actually 65k. Guess you'll need all that money, because your going to have to pay off school debt from your Doctorate in Biology.
http://careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/402/Genetic-Engineering-Research-Scientist.html