The Carbone Cancer Center has an opportunity for a Client-Based Researcher I position who will work with the faculty leader, Dr. Josh Lang, in the fields of Human Molecular Biology and Cellular Immunology at the UW Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC), as a member of the Circulating Biomarker Core (CBC). The focus of the CBC is to provide sample processing and analysis services to members of the UWCCC as well as the wider non-UW research community in-line with the development and clinical translation of biomarkers from the circulation that can predict or detect therapeutic resistance in patients with solid tumor diseases. Circulating biomarkers are evaluated on clinical specimens, primarily patient blood draws, through a series of sample processing steps, including ficoll density centrifugation, magnetic depletion of normal blood cells using standard MACS columns, magnetic enrichment and protein staining or nucleic acid (DNA/mRNA) extraction of metastatic tumor cells using either a customized pipetting robot or a handheld microfluidic device. Analytical systems include fluorescence microscopy image acquisition, raw image conversion into quantitative data using both automated image processing algorithms and manual review of identified objects. Characterization of mRNA is achieved with reverse-transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). With the ultimate goal of implementing these circulating biomarker diagnostics into clinical practice, the CBC is also actively developing the controls and analytical validation datasets required for regulatory approval. Our team of highly cooperative researchers coordinate the receipt, processing and analysis of 10-20 patient samples each week, testing a number of different protein and nucleic acid biomarkers, for numerous different projects involving basic research and clinical trials. This position requires work to be completed onsite, at a designated campus work location.