Nayak Lab - Junior Research Specialist

About the role

The Nayak Lab (nayak.ucsf.edu) seeks a junior research specialist to contribute to projects investigating the gut microbiome's impact on rheumatic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Using advanced technologies, the lab aims to advance precision medicine for these conditions.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to new and ongoing projects using techniques such as bacterial genomics, metabolomics, anaerobic microbiology, bacterial genetics, gnotobiotic animal models, and patient cohort studies.
• Use or learn new methods in anaerobic microbiology, microbial genomics, analytical chemistry, molecular biology, cell culture, mouse work, computational analysis, and immunology.
• Assist with managing lab operations, performing general lab duties, and being a positive team member.
• Work independently and contribute to a multidisciplinary team of microbiologists, immunologists, and computational biologists.
• Lead independent projects, develop new ideas, and participate in funding acquisition, where appropriate.

Requirements

• Excellent organizational and interpersonal communication skills.
• Willingness and ability to learn new methods and skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Prior experience with handling pathogenic microbes, aseptic techniques.
• Prior experience in high throughput sequencing and analysis.
• Prior experience in mass spectrometry or other analytical chemistry approaches.
• Prior experience in flow cytometry or other immune profiling methods.
• Prior experience in the design and assembly of DNA constructs.
• Prior experience in bacterial genome manipulation.
• Prior experience working with mice.

Qualifications

• At least a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) or four years of research experience.