Best degree for Research Nursing?

Hello research nurses! I am hoping you can help me out with a couple questions that I have.

I am a new grad RN (May 2005 Associate Degree). I am currently working in med/surg which I am enjoying very much experience wise, but I have pretty solid plans to become a research nurse down the road. While I was waiting and waiting for a spot in the nursing program I actually started pursuing a degree in microbiology which of course got put on hold when I was accepted to the ADN program. My plan was to work either in a hospital lab or for a genetic or oncology research lab. Of course I was ecstatic when I got the call that there was an open spot for me in nursing school, but it was hard to abandon the idea of becoming a research scientist as I was really starting to get into the idea! I was even going to get to take astrobiology as a senior elective. For a nerd like me, that would have been an amazing class.

Anyway, I need to start looking in to finishing my bachelor's degree and moving on to my master's and I have a couple of questions.

1) I was told that if I want to pursue a science related master's degree I should go for a "BS with a major in Nursing" as opposed to a fast track "ADN to BSN" program. I have tried looking it up on allnurses already and didn't find much. I know hospitals probably don't care either way, but I can see the point of grad schools caring because from what I can tell the BS program I was looking at requires Chemistry where the BSN program doesn't. Does anyone know if this is really going to make a big difference for me? My problem is that I can't start the BS program until the summer and it's at an expensive private school. My job offers an accelerated ADN to RN at a special price through another university in my state that has flexible start dates. They do it University of Phoenix style... one class at a time, fast track which honestly sounds nice.

2) Did any of you go to grad school for a non-nursing related degree? I am still interested in nursing related research... especially oncology and the thought of still having patient contact through conducting clinical trials sounds great to me. But I'm not really all that interested in becoming an NP or advanced practice nurse, so as far as grad school I'm at something of a loss because those are the degrees for nurses I hear about most. I was considering Public Health or maybe even going back to Microbiology or something along those lines. Could I still mix that with nursing?

So I guess in a nutshell I'm wondering what kind of degrees all of you have. Thanks in advance!