Summary

The Leukemia Research Program at Texas Children's Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine is seeking a Senior Staff Scientist to oversee the Basic and Translational research commitments of multiple laboratories. This will include directing the world's largest Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patient Derived Xenograft Research Program, testing novel agents, identifying mechanisms of chemoresistance, and understanding therapeutically relevant characteristics of leukemia initiating cells. Ideal candidate will be a motivated, organized, and team-oriented individual with extensive experience in laboratory personnel management, experimental design and conduct, grant and manuscript writing, equipment maintenance and troubleshooting, and initiation and conduct of successful extramural collaborations. Prior experience in multi-parameter (8+ color) flow cytometry, single cell sorting, bacterial cloning, CRISPR, microscopy, apoptosis and cell cycle assays, PCR/qPCR/ddPCR, RNA-Seq, immunoblotting/immunochemistry, kinase and phosphatase assays, and murine models of disease is required. This role requires flexibility with schedule, including overnight and weekends hours based on patient and experimental needs.

Job Duties

General Duties:

• Spearhead many projects simultaneously, by producing hypotheses, identifying and optimizing protocols, designing experiments, and generating quality data.
• Guide and support the development of multiple lab members through different projects. This includes teaching them how to formulate hypotheses, design experiments, conduct assays, develop critical reasoning skills, and write up and present results.
• Continuously read the literature to identify potential new research ideas.
• Maintain laboratory supplies.
• Write and edit manuscripts and grant applications in an organized and timely fashion.
• Write documentation for lab experimental conduct, including animal protocols, recombinant DNA protocols, and chemical inventory.
• Maintain close communication with PI and collaborators on multiple projects.
• Respectfully engage with and offer support to every lab member, colleague, and collaborator.
• Meet all lab expectations regardless of external academic responsibilities, including reviewing grants and manuscripts, and serving on committees.
• Support other members of the Leukemia Research Program, by conducting experiments and contributing to manuscripts 
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Perform the day to day work of managing and supervising the largest pediatric AML patient derived xenograft program in the world:

• Supervise and perform husbandry for the Stevens mouse colonies within the immunodeficient mouse (IDM) suite.
• Maintain excellent records.
• Supervise daily health checks by the CCM team and by the technicians in the Stevens laboratory.
• Monitor potential engraftment of patient samples within IDM models and optimizing techniques of harvest and banking of tissues from IDM models.
• Supervise the maintenance of meticulous records of banked patient and PDX samples.
• Coordinate with external programs to provide viably frozen PDX samples and provide expertise to collaborators/sample recipients on how to use the samples successfully.
• Maintain equipment within the laboratory and the IDM suite.
• Conduct and supervision of the conduct of large scale mouse experiments for through collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and academic investigators as a part of the Pediatric Acute Leukemia Xenograft Program.
• Identify areas of research to address unmet clinical needs, and design and conduct relevant projects.

Initiate and maintain productive intramural and extramural collaborations to benefit these projects Clinical Trial Correlative Biology:

• Interface with clinical teams as needed to receive samples.
• Supervise banking of patient samples for clinical trials run at TCH.
• Conduct correlative biology studies for current and future investigator initiated clinical trials.

Minimum Qualifications

• Doctoral Degree. Experience may not be substituted in lieu of degree.
• Seven years of postdoctoral  research experience.

Department Specific Criteria

• Must have experience with multi-parameter (8+ color) flow cytometry, single cell sorting, bacterial cloning, CRISPR, microscopy, apoptosis and cell cycle assays, PCR/qPCR/ddPCR, RNA-Seq, immunoblotting/immunochemistry, kinase and phosphatase assays, and murine models of disease is required.
• Expertise in common laboratory software (FlowJo, FCS Express, FACSDiva, GraphPad) is required.
• Command of written/spoken English is required. 
• Experience mentoring undergraduates and monitoring lab techniques.