Life Science Technician 2

The School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S) is the center of a world-class liberal arts education at Stanford University. H&S encompasses 23 departments—from Art and Art History, English, and History to Economics, Mathematics, and Biology—as well as 23 interdisciplinary programs. As the university’s largest school, H&S serves as the foundation of a Stanford undergraduate education no matter which discipline students pursue as a major. Graduate students work alongside world-renowned faculty to pursue and shape foundational research that leads to breakthroughs and discoveries that shed new light on the past, influence the present, and shape the future. Together, faculty and students in H&S engage in inspirational teaching, learning, and research every day.

Life Science Technician 2
The Chen lab (http://www.xiaokechenlab.com/) has a position for a motivated research assistant at the Life Science Technician II level with strong interests in molecular and circuitry neuroscience. Our lab focuses on understanding the circuitry and molecular basis for learning, drug addiction and chronic pain by using various viral tracing, circuitry manipulation, in vivo imaging/recording methods. This position will provide opportunities to learn a range of cellular and molecular techniques and offers a unique opportunity to collaborate with physiological and molecular neuroscientists.

The main responsibilities of the successful candidate will be performing cell culture, producing and purifying adeno-associated viruses. Other responsibilities will include performing routine laboratory techniques such as genotyping, PCRs and cloning, as well as maintaining records of lab work, curating samples and assisting in data analysis.
Characteristic Duties:
The duties listed under this section are designed to provide a representative sampling of key tasks and/or responsibilities associated with the job. They are not intended to be a complete list of all the duties performed by employees in the classification.

• Perform animal surgical techniques such as suturing, catheterization and infusion of arteries, small organ dissection, organ perfusion and tumor implantation and passage in small animals.
• Immunohistological procedures including frozen sectioning and multi-step immunologic staining for fluorescence or enzymatic detection. Some level of histologic assessment may be required.
• Maintenance, transfer and establishment of cell lines from normal or tumor cells, preparation and bioassay of serum, screening for contamination, isolation of cell mutants, cell staining, mass production of cells and cell cloning. • Fixation, dehydration, staining and embedding of specimens for electron microscopy; carbon coating, negative staining, shadowing, operation of electron microscope (EM) either transmission or scanning; use of an ultramicrotome with adiamond knife for routine thin sectioning; alignment of an EM where the system is automated. • Purification and /or structural characterization of compounds for which a protocolis well established. • Separation of cells, organelles, or molecules using density gradients. • Radioimmunoassay of viruses, proteins, or hormone levels in cell extract according to established protocol. • Techniques such as electrophoresis, chromatography, autoradiography, radiolabeling of animals, cell cultures, or macromolecules. • Isolation, purification and maintenance of mammalian viruses and bacteriophages; determination of viral concentration. • Genetic manipulation of bacteria including mutagenesis, ‘phage transduction and transformation. • Accurate documentation of experimental protocols and basic statistical analysis of data.