Short-term; Imaging Scientist Advanced Light Microscopy Unit; ALMU

The Institute

The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is an international biomedical research institute of excellence, based in Barcelona, Spain, with more than 400 scientists from 44 countries. The CRG is composed by an interdisciplinary, motivated and creative scientific team which is supported both by a flexible and efficient administration and by high-end and innovative technologies.

The postholder will be working with the team at the Advanced Light Microscopy Unit (ALMU) to train, manage and support the imaging needs of ALMU’s research community. The postholder will be responsible for the day-to-day maintenance and quality control of system performance, troubleshooting imaging systems, including widefield and confocal microscopy platforms. She/he will provide training and technical guidance to researchers on microscopy techniques and best practices according to ALMU standards.

Report and document equipment issues and initiate repairs using ALMU’s RT system. Ensure that all users adhere to ALMU and CRG policies and procedures. Interact with requests and bookings through ALMU’s booking system. Order with CRG’s purchasing system. Prepare standard samples and join the team in maintaining the wet lab and microscopy areas.

The ideal candidate will be able to join ALMU and bridge the 4 months staff gap by providing immediate, hands-on support with specific tasks. As this role is critical to facilitating a smooth transition and rapid adaptation, relevant and specific experience is required. Given the short duration of this role, it is essential that the successful candidate brings relevant and specific experience to ensure smooth and effective integration without the need for an extended training period.

Targeted adjustments and internal training will be provided to enable the candidate to perform the tasks in line with ALMU standards.

ALMU has over 200 users from CRG and beyond, mainly from the Barcelona area and nearby cities. As such, the role will involve addressing research questions from a broad field, ranging from cell biology, cancer biology, marine biology, plant biology, neuroscience, biophysics and cellular biomechanics. The postholder will be expected to operate specific instruments at ALMU covering technical capabilities for live-cell imaging, spectral imaging, FRET, FLIM, airyscan imaging, bioimage processing, analysis and data visualization.

More information about instrumentation at ALMU here .

About ALMU

ALMU is a walk-in core unit, part of CRG’s Core Technologies Programme and member of Core for Life andEU-LIFE, an excellence alliance of core facilities and research institutes in Europe, and on the path to becoming a Euro-Bioimaging node. We are located in the level
-1 of the PRBB building and together with our neighbours the Mesoscopic Imaging Facility (MIF) of EMBL Barcelona, we provide support and access to the full spectrum of light microscopy. We also collaborate with other research institutes in Barcelona, nationally and internationally.

ALMU is dedicated to assisting the research community with all aspects of Quantitative Bioimaging, including experimental design, sample preparation, acquisition, bioimage data processing and analysis, automation and data visualization.

Our unit consists of microscope systems specifically designed for fluorescence microscopy and cover different modalities ranging from widefield and confocal to super-resolution technologies and use primarily open-source software for bioimage data analysis, including AI-based bioimage analysis. We also run teaching courses and workshops in collaboration with CRG Training for the internal, local and international scientific community. ALMU also develops new imaging-based methods and technologies and collaborates with the scientific community and our partner microscopy companies.

• In depth understanding of optical microscopy
• Masters in areas such as Biology, physics, chemistry, Bioengineering or a related field. Ph.D. is preferred but not required
• At least 3 years’ experience in a research environment using advanced light microscopy instruments
• Experience using the following commercial confocal microscope system and…