Senior Scientist, Preclinical Addiction Research

UC San Diego; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 82,000 - 132,000; Full time

Job summary

UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry seeks a Senior Scientific Researcher to lead and support complex pre-clinical addiction studies. You will oversee rodent models, surgical procedures, and advanced molecular assays, ensuring rigor, reproducibility, and timely progress across funded projects.

The role requires independent judgment, mentorship of staff, and collaboration with internal and external partners, with opportunities to contribute to grant applications and scientific publications.

Qualifications

• Advanced experience with rodent models of addiction and related surgical procedures.
• Proven ability to lead preclinical studies from conception to publication.
• Experience managing daily research operations and ensuring data quality.
• Familiarity with regulatory requirements for animal research (IACUC, DEA, EHS).
• Strong statistical analysis skills and ability to work with big data.

Responsibilities

• Design, execute, and coordinate pre-clinical studies in addiction research.
• Oversee animal cohorts, timelines, and protocol standardization.
• Train staff and ensure compliance with biosafety and animal-use protocols.
• Perform molecular analyses (IHC, Western blot, RT-qPCR) and tissue processing.
• Contribute to data management, analysis, and manuscript preparation.

Skills

Rodent models of addiction

Study design leadership

Lab operations management

IACUC compliance

Statistical analysis

Experimental design

Molecular techniques

Grant writing

Data analysis software

Scientific writing

Tools

R

Python

Job description

UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry seeks a Senior Scientific Researcher to lead and support complex pre-clinical addiction studies. You will oversee rodent models, surgical procedures, and advanced molecular assays, ensuring rigor, reproducibility, and timely progress across funded projects.

The role requires independent judgment, mentorship of staff, and collaboration with internal and external partners, with opportunities to contribute to grant applications and scientific publications.