Postdoctoral Research Associate - Kirchner Lab
About The Position
The Postdoctoral Research Associate is responsible for conducting research into their field of expertise. The Postdoctoral Research Associate will utilize the skills and expertise granted to them by their education and experience to complete research projects in their field of expertise. Writes and may contribute to research papers, articles, and publications. Assists with the preparation and cleaning of worksite. May collaborate with other researchers and/or faculty both within and outside of Texas A&M. This position is within the Kirchner Laboratory in the Department of Medical Physiology at Texas A&M College of Medicine. This position will perform patch clamp electrophysiology, calcium imaging, and immunohistochemistry for to study the neurophysiology of vasopressin and oxytocin neurosecretory neurons, their role in hydromineral balance, and their dysfunction in a rat model of heart failure.
Requirements
- Appropriate PhD in neuroscience, neurophysiology, or a related field.
Nice To Haves
- Patch Clamp electrophysiology: Prep solutions for recordings, cutting live brain slices on a vibratome, and perform voltage and current clamp recordings in neurons.
- Use optogenetics, photolytic uncaging, chemogenetics, fluorescent biosensors, electrical stimulation, and application of pharmacologic compounds during patch clamp experiments.
- Maintain the electrophysiology rig, keep accurate records of experiments, perform data analysis, and create figures for publications and grants.
- Rodent survival surgery: Coronary ligation (heart failure surgery) for studying the disease in electrophysiology experiments.
- Stereotaxic delivery of AAVs encoding fluorescent tracers, DREADDs or opsins to be used in electrophysiology experiments.
- Calcium imaging: Utilize calcium dyes or genetically encoded calcium sensors (i.e. GCaMP) to measure and quantify intracellular calcium levels in a live brain slice preparation. Perform these experiments simultaneously with patch clamp.
- Immunohistochemistry (IHC): Transcardial perfusion, fixation, cryostat sectioning, staining, and mounting tissue specimens.
- Visualization and analysis of IHC imaging data
- Multiunit electrophysiological experiments, particularly using Neuropixels
- Software Expertise and Data Analysis: pCLAMP, ImageJ, MatLab, Imaris
- Additional expertise using Igor Pro, Prism, Python, and/or Adobe Illustrator
- Ability to train other laboratory members in the techniques listed above.
Responsibilities
- Research: Under general supervision, is responsible for conducting research into their field of expertise. Utilizes knowledge and skills granted to them by their education and expertise to complete research projects in their field of expertise. Assists with the preparation and cleaning of worksite. Analyzes research data and summarizes results. Writes and may contribute to research papers, articles, and publications.
- Mentoring: May assist, mentor, and/or supervise student researchers and/or graduate students who are working on research related to the project.
- Presentations: Prepares presentation materials on research topic that may be presented to small and/or large groups. Actively participates in the preparation of required technical progress reports to research sponsors.
- Professional Development: Apply for career-appropriate grants and fellowships under the guidance of the PI. Travels to scientific conferences to give presentations.
Benefits
- Medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, life and AD&D, flexible spending accounts, and long-term disability insurance with Texas A&M contributing to employee health and basic life premiums
- 12-15 days of annual paid holidays
- Up to eight hours of paid sick leave and at least eight hours of paid vacation each month
- Automatic enrollment in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas
- Free exercise programs and release time
- All employees have access to free LinkedIn Learning training, webinars, and limited financial support to attend conferences, workshops, and more
- Educational release time and tuition assistance for completing a degree while a Texas A&M employee
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
Ph.D. or professional degree
