Hourly Lab Technician - Dept. of Anatomy and Neurobiology

Virginia Commonwealth University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action university providing access to education and employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, political affiliation, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or disability.

Position Responsibilities:

Opportunity to conduct cutting edge experiments using optogenetics in the field of neuroscience, exploring mechanisms of developmental epilepsy and malformed structures, and physiological effects and potential treatments of traumatic brain injury. Lab Technician will take primary role in maintaining a clean laboratory space, preparing solutions, performing immunohistochemical staining, morphological studies involving confocal microscopy, electrophysiological experiments, and helping to maintain a mouse colony and generating experimental animal models.

Qualifications:

Laboratory and/or animal handling experience preferred. Knowledge and/or experience with the following preferred: handling and/or breeding rodents, proper methodology for making molar solutions, performing immunohistochemical studies, performing electrophysiological recordings, and using advanced microscope techniques. Ability to learn new software programs quickly and to adjust schedule to demands of experiment required. Proficiency with Excel, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft PowerPoint, and EndNote preferred. Demonstrated experience working in and fostering an environment of respect, professionalism and civility with a population of faculty, staff, and students from various backgrounds and experiences, or a commitment to do so as a hourly employee at VCU.

Core Responsibilities:

1.) Breeding and maintaining transgenic mouse colonies and experimental animals

• Maintaining the proper numbers of animals needed for all lab workers to conduct experiments; 2) Proper breeding (based on genotype) of mice to generate animals for use in experiments; 3) Maintenance of records that show all aspects of animal care, use and breeding, with mlims software; 4) Performing surgery or procedures to create experimental animals for studies in epilepsy and neurotrauma; 5) Ordering lab supplies as needed

2.) Immunohistochemistry, Western Blots, Confocal Microscopy and ImageJ Analysis

• Cardial perfusion of rodents and preparation of the brain for immunohistochemistry; Vibratome sectioning of the brain tissue; Immunohistochemical staining of brain sections to reveal antigens, with triple labeling in each section; Determining the best protocol and procedures for obtaining proper immunohistochemical labeling with antibodies new to the lab; Use of the confocal microscope to take appropriately located images for data analysis; Analysis of number of cells and staining intensity of cells or structures in ImageJ; Use of Neurolucida software to draw and analyze individual labeled cells; Performing Western Blot collection and analysis of data.

3.) Electrophysiology

• Maintain laboratory solutions, including artificial cerebrospinal fluid; Prepare live brain slices; Field potential recordings from cortical regions; Whole cell patch clamp recordings from single cells; Optical activation of specific cell types based on mouse breeding (optogenetics); Labeling of recorded cell; Data analysis of recordings; Graphical demonstrations of analysis; Written summary of methods and results.

4.) Clean Laboratory spaces and equipment

• Laboratory table tops are consistently clean, free from dust; Laboratory balances and stirrers are clean and free of chemical debris; Laboratory equipment is free from dust; Cold stones are clean and not sticking together.

The School of Medicine continuously strives for our workplace and learning environment to reflect the demographic and social milieu of the communities we serve. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.

This is a restricted position with no set end date and continued employment is dependent upon project need, availability of funding, and performance.