Research Associate, Research Scientist, Biomedical Science

Who we are:

The Gladstone Institutes is an independent, not-for-profit research institution. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of all people through medical research and education in neuroscience, cardiovascular biology, immunology, and stem cell biology. Home to notable leaders in science and biomedicine,

Science

Finkbeiner Lab

The Gladstone Institutes is an independent, not-for-profit research institution. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of all people through medical research and education in neuroscience, cardiovascular biology, immunology, and stem cell biology. Home to notable leaders in science and biomedicine,

Gladstone comprises five institutes as well as various centers and programs. All of its approximately 600 members are aligned in their mission to carry out or support science that overcomes disease. Located in an award-winning building at the Mission Bay Campus, Gladstone offers a competitive salary and benefits program. It provides an ideal environment for those seeking to maximize and fully leverage their potential.

Consider Gladstone and make a difference in human health.

We are seeking a highly motivated, curious, and creative Research Associate I to join our discovery team that is focused on investigating the mechanisms of age-dependent neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation to better understand disease biology and to identify novel therapeutic opportunities for neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and Huntington’s disease (HD).

One key area of research involves modeling neuroinflammation and the role it plays in neurodegeneration by focusing on the role of glia, and especially neuron-microglial interactions, to better understand the mechanistic contributions to disease pathogenesis. We are also interested in the role that protein homeostasis plays in aging and in disease, and a main research focus in the lab is on the autophagy-lysosome pathway (ALP).

This position offers an opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research and use high-throughput (HTS) and high-content (HCS) image-based screening by robotic microscopy and computational approaches including machine learning in glial and neuron cell types derived from human patient induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to identify disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets.

The candidate will join a dynamic multidisciplinary research team and we wish to find someone with a collaborative and pioneering work ethic and genuine enthusiasm and curiosity to learn. Many of our projects are carried out in collaboration with industry partners to develop new therapeutics based on the targets we identify.

• Maintain and differentiate human patient iPSCs to neurons, microglia, astrocytes, and organoids, and carry out cell transfections, nucleofections, or viral transductions and perform cell-based assays using imaging and other approaches.
• Perform automated and manual cell-based imaging assays with novel biosensors for cell survival, neuroinflammation, autophagy, lysosome function, protein trafficking, and other cell-based functions.
• Perform standard assay techniques such as ELISA, western blotting, immunocytochemistry, and immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy and spectral imaging.
• Perform standard molecular biology techniques such as DNA preparation and restriction enzyme digestions, DNA cloning and plasmid construction, gel electrophoresis, and qPCR.
• Perform manual curation and statistical analysis of imaging data using basic computational skills (R-analysis, Galaxy pipeline workflow construction, Image…