Research Animal Technician

This competition is open to all applicants however internal candidates and applicants who were former employees of the University of Alberta in the past 18 months will be given priority consideration before external candidates. Please indicate your internal status using the "Advertisement" drop down menu when applying.

This position has an expected end date of one year from the date of hire.

The Research (animal) technician is responsible to carry out maintenance duties of lab animals as directed by the Principal Investigator. The technician also plans and conducts experiments for research purposes in addition to assisting others in technical aspects of selected research projects.

Duties

• The technician is responsible for laboratory aspects of various projects relating to animal models of muscular dystrophies and molecular therapy: some involves mutation analysis, injections into mice, physiological and histological analysis of mouse muscles.
• Uses and maintains a variety of laboratory equipment and orders laboratory supplies
• Experimental techniques include muscle physiology (grip strength, rota-rod, treadmill, open-field, isolated muscle force strength), histology (H&E staining, trichrome staining), immunohistochemistry, molecular biology (qPCR, Western blotting), cell biology, microscopy, and work with mouse models of muscular dystrophies.
• Genotypes and maintains mouse colonies.
• Write animal protocols for experiments.
• Provide technical expertise to colleagues and students on their projects.
• Compiles data and carries out preliminary data analysis and maintain lab notebook.
• Presentation of data at weekly lab meetings.
• Responsible for shared lab duties (i.e. cleaning shared animal equipment spaces) and departmental responsibilities (i.e. maintaining assigned equipment and ordering supplies).
• Assists PI in slide preparation for presentations.

Qualifications

• Minimum 1 year experience in laboratory setting in Medical Genetics
• Minimum High School Diploma; BSc or MSc preferred
• Minimum 1 years laboratory experience with murine models, and basic muscle physiology techniques (mouse rota-rod, treadmill, and grip strength) and histological techniques (H&E staining, trichrome staining, and immunohistochemistry)

COVID-19 Vaccination: Proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 in compliance with the University’s COVID-19 Vaccination Directive. Fully Vaccinated means a status an individual achieves 14 days after having received the recommended number of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine approved by Health Canada or the World Health Organization, and requires the individual to maintain the recommended number and type of vaccine doses as updated and required by Health Canada thereafter.

Note: Online applications are accepted until midnight Mountain Standard Time of the closing date.

We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only those individuals selected for an interview will be contacted.