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Job Summary

The Ismagilov Lab at Caltech is hiring a full-time Research Lab Technician for a 2-year term position. Reporting to Professor Rustem Ismagilov, the successful candidate will contribute to many ongoing projects of high priority in the lab, including those focused on the gut microbiome and on infectious-disease diagnostics. The Ismagilov Lab is passionate about bringing creativity, science, and technology to solve problems in global health. We collaborate with clinical teams, industry, and other stakeholders to translate our research into impact. We are pursuing programs in rapid diagnostics of infectious diseases, and we work to understand the interplay of food, gut microbes, and biophysics in human health. One of our lab’s unique strengths is that we develop novel technologies to enable high-resolution quantitative measurements and computational analyses that have previously been impossible but are necessary to understand complex systems like the human-microbe interface. More details about the Ismagilov lab and our research projects can be found at http://ismagilovlab.che.caltech.edu/research.

Essential Job Duties

• Assist graduate students, postdocs, and research staff in validating their research findings by reproducing their experiments with additional samples and/or assisting in the design of validation experiments.
• Perform DNA and RNA extractions from many different sample types, including clinical samples (e.g., saliva, swabs, urine, blood) and processed animal samples.
• Perform nucleic acid amplification analyses using standard techniques such as qPCR, ddPCR, RT-qPCR, RT-ddPCR, and LAMP.
• Assist with sequencing library preparations for 16S rRNA gene and shotgun metagenomic sequencing.
• Perform library quality control steps prior to sending samples out for sequencing.
• Perform basic microbiology techniques such as bacterial culture, making media, and handling glycerol stocks with aseptic techniques.
• Analyze raw data and generate figures using software provided by the laboratory.
• Maintain the lab’s excellent standards for biosafety and chemical safety.
• Follow lab procedures for maintaining a neat, detailed electronic lab notebook.
• Maintain the organization of lab workspaces.
• A highly motivated and qualified candidate may additionally develop independent aspects of ongoing projects, while continuing to provide research support to the lab.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in science with educational emphasis in chemistry, biology, microbiology, or a related field required at time of application.
• Lab experience in microbiology, molecular biology, and/or biochemistry.
• Highly detail-oriented; must have prior experience performing sensitive experiments and using laboratory techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to learn to perform highly technical workflows in a laboratory setting.
• Must be able to use sound judgment to handle a variety of tasks simultaneously and to shift priorities, as well as effectively solve problems.
• Must be able to work independently as well as part of a collaborative team in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with all levels of staff.
• Ambition to learn how to design high-quality experiments and definitively answer scientific questions for a lab.
• Strong organizational, time-management, and project-management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ambition to enter a top medical or graduate school.
• Prior experience with working at BSL-2.
• Prior experience performing qPCR and nucleic-acid extractions.
• Prior experience handling and processing 96-sample assays, such as 96-well PCR plates or 96-well screening assays.
• Co-authorship on a scientific publication.
• Prior experience or undergraduate-level coursework with a basic programming language for data analysis (Python, MATLAB, R).

Required Documents

• Resume
• Cover Letter