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 will have an end date of one year plus a day from the date of hire with the possibility of extension, and offers a comprehensive benefits package which can be viewed at: Faculty & Staff Benefits .

The Technician is primarily responsible for coordinating and supporting research projects in the Tan Laboratory.  Our lab studies how the brain develops and functions. We are particularly interested in how nerve cells are produced and maintained in the adult brain.

Duties

• Coordinate research projects including organizing and setting up materials and equipment for mouse brain surgery and behavioral procedures, biochemical, molecular and cellular biological techniques;
• Organize and maintain general laboratory operations, including inventory and equipment maintenance, training, and biosafety and animal use protocol compliance;
• Perform mouse behavioral studies;
• Perform a variety of biochemical, molecular and cellular studies;
• Maintain and breed transgenic mouse lines;
• Maintain cell culture stocks;
• Consult with principal investigator to develop new experiments and techniques for the research project;
• Perform experiments involving routine and complex procedures in order to meet research objectives;
• Modify existing protocols for current experiments in order to meet research objectives;
• Use a variety of lab equipment to conduct experiments and monitor results;
• Order and maintain laboratory equipment and supplies;
• Maintain a database of laboratory inventory;
• Prepare figures for manuscripts;
• Prepare and maintain a variety of specialized solutions for use in experiments;
• Perform other duties and responsibilities as requested by the principal investigator.

Qualifications and Experience

Education:

Minimum of a BSc in a relevant field; MSc preferred

Experience:

• Minimum of five years lab experience in the capacity of research technician or research lab project coordinator.
• Demonstrated record of publications. Minimum of two first- or co-first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals in the past three years.
• Advanced skills in mouse behavioral assays and mouse brain tissue dissection.
• At least five years of experience with mouse husbandry and genotyping of complex genetic mouse models.
• Experience with cryo tissue embedding, cryosectioning, and immunohistochemical staining.
• Experience with mammalian cell culture, molecular biology techniques.
• Experience in protein characterization methods, including polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting.
• Experience in advanced molecular biology techniques including cloning and quantitative polymerase chain reaction.
• Experience in global proteome analyses and protein-protein interactions.
• Experience in super-resolution and/or confocal immuno-fluorescence microscopy.
• Experience with image analyses software such as Imaris and/or ImageJ.
• Experience with statistical analyses software such as GraphPad Prism and SPSS.
• Experience in manuscript preparation and oral presentations using Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, Biorender and/or other software for figure preparation.

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.