Associate Scientist

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The Department of Cell and Systems Biology has an exciting opportunity for a full-time Associate Scientist to work on-site in Miami, FL.

Core Job Summary

The Associate Scientist, SOM supports the University's research goals and objectives by performing laboratory experiments in his/her areas of interest, expertise, or assignment. Moreover, the incumbent performs various analytical procedures involving method development and application development and synthesis.

Core Job Functions

• Contributes to basic and applied research activities including authorship of scientific publications, technical and agency reports, and patent preparations.
• Publishes in refereed journals in collaboration with department leadership or independently.
• Supervises research employees and non-exempt staff.
• Writes extramural proposals with approval of senior managing staff.
• Creates and conducts experiments and analyzes results.
• Works with other researchers to use and develop end products.
• Provides ready access to all experimental data for the faculty researchers, supervisors, and other relevant staff.
• Requests or acquires equipment and supplies for assigned project(s).
• Applies for grants to continue research and prepares materials for submission to granting agencies and foundations.
• Adheres to University and unit-level policies and procedures and safeguards University assets.

Additional information

This list of duties and responsibilities is not intended to be all-inclusive and may be expanded to include other duties or responsibilities as necessary.

Core Qualifications

• Education: Doctorate degree - Philosophy (PhD) required
• Experience: Minimum 5 years of relevant experience required

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Learning Agility: Ability to learn new procedures, technologies, and protocols, and adapt to changing priorities and work demands.
• Teamwork: Ability to work collaboratively with others and contribute to a team environment.
• Technical Proficiency: Skilled in using office software, technology, and relevant computer applications.
• Communication: Strong and clear written and verbal communication skills for interacting with colleagues and stakeholders.

Department Specific Job Summary

The Associate Scientist will be involved in building next-generation models of human cell biology relevant to regeneration and disease.

They will establish a cohort of patient-derived and gene edited cell lines for "in vitro clinical trials" related to cell biological disorders such as polycystic kidney disease and cystinosis, characterizing these cell lines and derived organoids, and applying these tools to investigate mechanisms of disease and candidate therapeutics.

Additional models such as mouse or human datasets will also be analyzed as comparators, and animal work may be conducted as an additional research area. The Associate Scientist will contribute meaningfully to grant applications, manuscripts, and will have the opportunity to mentor junior scientists.

They will also take on part-time lab management duties, including acting as a chemical hygiene officer for the laboratory, assisting with ordering issues, interacting with various agencies and safety departments, writing risk assessments and SOPs, overseeing common lab databases and inventories, and delegating lab tasks to individual lab members.

They will also help interface with the Division, approve orders and time sheets (if possible), aliquot and distribute key common reagents, work with vendors to secure competitive prices, help prepare IACUC submissions, maintain equipment or surplus, and help schedule team building and recognition exercises.

Experimental duties include: 60%

• Cell culture - daily differentiation and maintenance of human pluripotent stem cells or cell lines
• Microscopy - immunofluorescence, confocal, wide-field, live cell
• Genome editing - guide RNA construction, transfection, screening
• Drug discovery - design and execution of assays to test therapeutic candidates
• Drug development - hit-to-lead advancement, preclinical workup (pharmacokinetics/metabolism)
• Biochemistry and molecular biology - qPCR, electrophoresis, immunoblotting, cloning
• Computing and analysis - Illustrator, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, ImageJ, HTML, GraphPad
• Documentation - daily record of work performed in files and laboratory notebook

Scholarship: 20%

• Contribute data and ideas for reports and publications
• Assist in seeking/acquiring additional funding
• Prepare summary slides and presentations of projects to share with stakeholders
• Figure and text preparation for peer-reviewed manuscripts

Lab duties: 20%

• Manage junior lab members
• Lead projects or project tasks toward research objectives
• Inventory management for reagents/orders/cells
• Track orders and expenses
• Ensure compliance with lab regulations and completion of corresponding paperwork
• Aid PI in communications with administrative staff and scientific collaborators

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Technical Proficiency: Skilled in using office software, technology, and relevant computer applications. - Communication: Strong and clear written and verbal communication skills for interacting with colleagues and stakeholders.

Pay and benefits

The University of Miami offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, tuition remission and more.

UHealth-University of Miami Health System, South Florida's only university-based health system, provides leading-edge patient care powered by the ground breaking research and medical education at the Miller School of Medicine. As an academic medical center, we are proud to serve South Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean. Our physicians represent more than 100 specialties and sub-specialties, and have more than one million patient encounters each year. Our tradition of excellence has earned worldwide recognition for outstanding teaching, research and patient care. We're the challenge you've been looking for.

Job Status: Full time

Employee Type: Staff