Junior Specialist – Costello lab

University of California San Francisco; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 57,000 - 61,000; Full time

Job summary

University of California San Francisco is seeking a Junior Specialist in the Costello lab to perform cell and molecular analyses on glioma cells and patient-derived tissues. You will report to the lab manager and Dr. Costello, presenting progress every two weeks at lab meetings.

The role includes tumor cell culture, RNA isolation, qPCR, protein work, immunology assays, and building 3D brain tumor models with Slicer. Strong data recording and computational skills are essential.

Qualifications

• Baccalaureate degree in Neuroscience or Molecular and Cellular Biology.
• Proficiency in R and hands-on familiarity with Slicer 3D.
• Experience navigating a high performance compute cluster.
• Hands-on experience with basic cell culture and standard molecular biology techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to accurately document data and meet deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Perform cell and molecular analysis on glioma cells and patient-derived tissues.
• Report progress biweekly and present findings at lab meetings.
• Construct 3D brain tumor models using Slicer and map to immune scores or gene expression.
• Keep reagents and equipment inventory; place orders via BearBuy when shortages occur.

Skills

R programming

HPC cluster navigation

Cell culture techniques

Data documentation

Education

Baccalaureate degree in Neuroscience or Molecular and Cellular Biology

Tools

Slicer 3D

Job description

Junior Specialist – Costello lab

Under direct supervision, perform cell and molecular analysis on glioma cells and patient-derived tissues, reporting to Dr. Costello and the lab manager. Every two weeks, report progress and data directly to Dr. Costello and Dr. Okada and present at lab meeting to report research findings and difficulties.

Perform tumor cell assays, including human cell culturing, passaging, differentiation, cell counting, centrifugation, transferring liquids and pipetting molecular reagents.

Conduct molecular biology tasks such as RNA isolation, reverse transcription, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, protein purification, and immunoblotting.

Perform specialized immunology assays, including in vitro T-cell sensitization, and co-culture cytotoxicity assays to validate anti-tumor activity, use specialized machine to read raw data such as conductivity or cell number, keep record of data and interpret them using designated software.

Construct 3D brain tumor models using Slicer to visualize brain, tumor and spatial biopsies. Implement custom R-based pipelines to map spatial biopsies to immune scores or gene expression.

Keeping record of lab reagents and equipment inventory and assign order to lab manager on BearBuy when there’s a shortage.

Required Qualifications:

• Baccalaureate degree in Neuroscience or Molecular and Cellular Biology.
• Proficiency in the computer language R and hands-on familiarly with Slicer 3D.
• Experience in navigating high performance compute cluster.
• Knowledge of hands-on experience with basic cell culture and standard molecular biology techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to accurately document data in laboratory notebook, multi-task and execute assays efficiently. Meet tight deadlines and meticulous to details.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Extensive prior undergraduate laboratory research experience specifically within a neuro-oncology or neurological surgery laboratory settings.
• Prior specialized training or hands on experience with live cell monitoring, molecular assays and immunology assays.
• Experience with computational analysis of qPCR, xCelligence, and BCA data, data interpretation and plotting in R.
• Proven track record of research productivity, and high-quality data generation, including co-authorship on peer-review publication(s).

See Table 24B for the salary range for this position. A reasonable estimate for this position is $57,000 - $60,700.

Baccalaureate degree in Neuroscience or Molecular and Cellular Biology.