Technical Research Assistant I

Mass General Brigham•Boston, MA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Join the Santagata Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) as a Technical Research Assistant I working on a multidisciplinary program to develop new targeted therapies for rare pediatric and adult brain tumors. We are seeking a talented and highly motivated individual to help identify and validate therapeutically actionable cell-surface proteins in rare brain cancers, with particular emphasis on targets for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and other emerging targeted therapies. The position is supported by a Department of Defense research program focused on overcoming the major challenges posed by rare brain tumors: limited tissue availability, biological heterogeneity, and the lack of effective targeted treatments. The successful candidate will work with advanced tissue-imaging and spatial molecular technologies to quantitatively characterize therapeutic targets in patient tumor specimens and patient-derived models. Major approaches include cyclic immunofluorescence (CyCIF), ORION whole-slide multiplexed imaging, conventional immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence, and integration with spatial transcriptomic data. The research program spans rare pediatric and adult brain tumors, including ependymoma, craniopharyngioma, atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor, pediatric high-grade glioma, rare meningiomas, embryonal tumors, and other molecularly defined tumors. A major goal is to determine whether drugs developed for more common cancers can be repurposed for rare brain tumors based on quantitative measurement of therapeutic target expression. You will be based in Dr. Sandro Santagata’s laboratory at BWH and work closely with investigators at Harvard Medical School’s Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, and collaborating laboratories. The project brings together neuropathologists, cancer biologists, chemists, imaging scientists, computational biologists, and neuro-oncologists. This is an excellent opportunity for an early-career scientist interested in translational cancer research, molecular imaging, biological chemistry, quantitative pathology, and therapeutic development. The position provides extensive hands-on experience with high-dimensional tissue imaging, antibody qualification, assay development, image analysis, and integration of molecular and morphologic data from human tumors.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in biology, biochemistry, biological chemistry, chemical biology, biomedical engineering, biophysics, computational biology, bioinformatics, or a related biomedical or quantitative field.
Demonstrated interest in biomedical research, cancer biology, molecular measurement, tissue imaging, or quantitative analysis of biological data.
Prior laboratory research experience, particularly involving microscopy, immunofluorescence, molecular or biochemical assays, or quantitative data analysis, is preferred.
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, including the ability to work with complex sample sets and contribute to development of well-annotated research datasets.
Willingness to commit to approximately two years in the position and grow within a collaborative, multidisciplinary research environment is strongly preferred.
Ability to perform reproducible experiments and maintain well-organized experimental records.
Experience with or strong interest in immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, microscopy, protein biochemistry, molecular biology, or related experimental methods.
Understanding of basic protein biochemistry and molecular interactions, including antibody–antigen binding, is desirable.
Interest in quantitative analysis of biological data and willingness to learn image-analysis and computational tools.
Familiarity with ImageJ/Fiji, Python, R, MATLAB, or related quantitative tools is desirable but not required.
Ability to learn and troubleshoot technically sophisticated experimental workflows.
Strong organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills.
Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a multidisciplinary research environment.
Intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm for connecting experimental observations with questions in cancer biology and therapeutic development.

Responsibilities

Develop a spatial molecular atlas of therapeutic targets in rare pediatric and adult brain tumors by generating, organizing, and quantitatively analyzing multiplexed tissue-imaging data across tumor types, cases, and histologic regions.
Perform multiplexed tissue-imaging experiments using CyCIF, ORION, immunofluorescence, and related methods to quantitatively characterize cell-surface therapeutic targets in rare pediatric and adult brain tumors.
Develop and qualify antibodies against therapeutic targets, including established and emerging ADC targets.
Compare antibody clones and optimize staining conditions with attention to specificity, cellular localization, signal-to-background ratio, dynamic range, and reproducibility.
Design and optimize multiplex antibody panels incorporating therapeutic targets together with tumor-lineage, proliferation, immune, vascular, and cell-state markers.
Prepare and analyze human FFPE tissue specimens, tissue microarrays, and patient-derived tumor models while using tissue-sparing experimental strategies appropriate for scarce clinical samples.
Perform quantitative analysis of whole-slide multiplexed images, including image quality control, single-cell segmentation and quantification, evaluation of target-expression heterogeneity, and visualization of spatial patterns.
Integrate protein-imaging results with complementary molecular datasets, including spatial transcriptomic data, to identify and prioritize candidate therapeutic targets.
Assist with studies comparing patient tumors with patient-derived cell lines and xenograft models to identify models that preserve clinically relevant therapeutic-target expression.
Support development of standardized ORION multiplexed imaging assays designed to measure multiple therapeutic targets from a single tissue section and facilitate future clinical-trial and diagnostic applications.
Maintain detailed experimental records and organized research datasets, including antibody-validation results, imaging experiments, sample metadata, and quality-control information.
Troubleshoot and optimize experimental protocols and contribute ideas for improving assay performance, reproducibility, throughput, and tissue utilization.
Prepare figures and datasets and contribute to scientific presentations, manuscripts, and collaborative project reports.
Present work at laboratory and multidisciplinary project meetings and participate actively in discussions of experimental results and next steps.
Support routine laboratory activities, including reagent preparation, ordering, equipment maintenance, sample organization, and adherence to laboratory safety procedures.
Work collaboratively with scientists, physicians, computational researchers, and other research staff across BWH, HMS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, and collaborating institutions.