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The University of Washington (UW) is proud to be one of the nation’s premier educational and research institutions. Our people are the most important asset in our pursuit of achieving excellence in education, research, and community service. Our staff not only enjoys outstanding benefits and professional growth opportunities, but also an environment noted for diversity, community involvement, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.
The UW Department of Pediatrics is dedicated to improving the health of all children by educating physicians of the future, advancing research, advocating for children, and providing the nation's best pediatric clinical care. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive faculty and staff.

The Division of Developmental Medicine is currently recruiting for a Research Scientist/Engineer 1 in the Doherty Lab. The goal of the laboratory is to research is to identify genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders and brain malformations and to understand the function of these genes during normal and abnormal brain development. The incumbent will perform specialized work in support of this research.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Job duties include but are not limited to:
•Sample intake and processing: label, track, process (isolate DNA or RNA isolation, establish lymphoblastoid or fibroblast cell lines) and store human samples (blood, DNA, cell lines, tissue) in compliance with human subjects research regulations.
•Tissue culture: maintain patient and immortalized cell lines, use genome engineering techniques to introduce or correct DNA variants using established techniques.
•Microscopy: analyze cell lines for defects using immunofluorescence, live cell tracking,
•Basic molecular biology techniques: nucleic acid isolation, quantitative PCR, western blotting and other established techniques.
•DNA Sequencing: sequence candidate genes for disorders using traditional Sanger sequencing as well as targeted capture and next generation sequencing.
•Sequence data analysis: use standard informatics pipelines to analyze a variety of sequence data including targeted, exome, and whole genome, long-read, and RNAseq, both bulk and single cell.
•Expertise: stay up to date on research related to their projects by reading the literature and attending selected seminars.
•Perform other research duties as required such as: protocol implementation and trouble shooting.
•Data presentation: summarize research results in presentations for lab meetings as well as for use in public presentations and publications.
•Maintain appropriate research documentation and databases.
•Lab safety: support strict lab safety practices as related to wet chemicals, compressed gases, tissue culture, and hazardous materials, and support the laboratory's compliance with federal and state safety regulations.
•Ordering: ensure that all supplies for the lab are stocked accordingly.
•Other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:
•Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Cell Biology, Neuroscience or related field and one year of related work experience.

Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
•Demonstrated practical experience and proficiency in basic molecular biology procedures including DNA isolation, spectrophotometry for measuring nucleic acid concentration, PCR primer design, PCR amplification, gel electrophoresis, restriction enzyme digest, bacterial transformation, basic bioinformatics approaches using PubMed, UCSC Genome Browser, Ensembl, etc.
•Ability to work well in a team and present experimental results clearly using strong computer skills in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.          
•Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except where there are legal requirements such as license/certification/registration.

DESIRED:
•Experience with tissue culture, immunofluorescence microscopy, biochemistry methods (western blotting, immunoprecipitation), DNA sequencing, bioinformatics programming languages such as Python, R, Java, and/or Perl.

Working conditions:
•Standing for up to 4 hours at a time
•Reaching, bending, stooping, and walking
•Occasionally lifting up to 20 pounds
•Repetitive motions
•Manual dexterity sufficient to accurately work with small, delicate pieces of equipment
•Visual acuity sufficient to confirm sub-microliter amounts of clear liquid in pipette tips and accurately pipette into <3mm wells
•Wearing appropriate protective gear when required, including mask, gloves, safety goggles, etc.
•Ability to get to the lab on 1 hour's notice in case of power outages or freezer failures

Conditions of employment:

The employee will receive training in human subjects research and will be required to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of, and maintain confidentiality of patient privacy rights, employee information, Department of Pediatrics strategic plans and initiatives, financial information or other sensitive materials and information in printed, electronic or verbal form, which may jeopardize employee rights, the organization’s operations or privacy of patients. They will access and use the minimum necessary information to perform job responsibilities and duties and only for authorized purposes.

Application Process:

The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process.  These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others.  Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.