Associate Scientist/Core Director

The Emory University School of Medicine seeks an innovative Director for the newly established institutional Emory Integrated Biorepository Core (EIBC). The goal is for the leader to continue to build the Core into a cutting-edge program supporting the academic mission of the institution in research areas including COVID-19, other infectious diseases, cardiology, and immunology. The Core Director will report directly to Dr. Cheryl Maier (Assistant Professor, Scientific Director of EIBC). The Core Director will be responsible for the daily operations and supervising Core laboratory staff to ensure high quality, cost-efficient, and timely services are delivered to client investigators throughout Emory University. The Core Director will participate in the academic and administrative activities that support the basic and translational research mission of the institutional EIBC. This Emory Integrated Core Facilities position will be on the staff scientist career track within the Cores Department within the School of Medicine. The Core Director will have full-time effort committed to management of the EIBC staff and services.

Emory Integrated Biorepository Core:
The EIBC is currently located in the Woodruff Memorial Building, directly adjacent to the Emory University Hospital and at the center of the Emory University Campus. Current activities are focused on expanding the COVID-19 sample biorepository. In 2022, this Core and all the associated specimens will be relocated to the newly constructed Health Sciences Research Building 2, where it will be maintained within a newly installed Hamilton BiOS® Automated Storage System capable of storing more than 3 million samples. At that time, biorepository samples generated by research activities throughout the campus will be transitioned to the EIBC BiOS System. Future expansion of the EIBC to other buildings throughout Emory campus is planned. The EIBC uses OpenSpecimen for data management, a software system that is the Emory standard for these applications.

Current funding for the EIBC and associated activities includes the NIAID U54 SeroNet grant, the NIBIB RADx contract, and institutional support for COVID biorepository activities. The EIBC Director is expected to participate in the research mission at Emory by not only directing the biobanking activities of EIBC, but also supporting a variety of clinical-translational research activities, including assisting investigators with applications for funding.

When fully-operational, biospecimens stored in EIBC will include those obtained from patients with a wide variety of conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, and inflammatory conditions. Robust custom collection and processing protocols are used for many different biospecimen types. The EIBC aspires to become a preeminent center of excellence in biobanking, a critical resource for the Emory research community, and an essential partner in developing personalized health care for the patient population at Emory, affiliated institutions, and external healthcare partners.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

The Associate Academic Research Scientist performs a wide range of highly technical and complex research duties and has documented scientific achievements and increasing technical, management, leadership, and professional expertise necessary to advance basic and/or translational research programs.
Demonstrated knowledge of research and experimental platforms for analyzing, design and interpreting results Investigates and recommends potential alternative approaches to improve the quality of results of basic and/or translational research.
Demonstrates increased responsibility through management of teams and leadership of scientific projects by applying advanced knowledge, skills, and input necessary for protocol development, as well as facilitating in some training aspects of other team members.
Aids in writing IACUC, IRB, Biosafety and other approval documents.
Oversees quality assurance of research conducted by other team members.
May assist in grant and other funding applications as necessary and appropriate, or with approval of the responsible faculty director, may have their own research projects and/or have full responsibilities for specific areas of instrumentation or methodology development and user support.
With the approval of the responsible faculty director, may be principal investigators on funded proposals.
Performs other responsibilities as required.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

PhD or MD and five years of professional level experience OR Masters degree and ten years of professional level experience in a technical or research lab.
Laboratory experience will be based on area of assignment.
Internship experience or experience prior to attaining the qualifying degree is not considered eligible work experience for this job classification.
NOTE: Applicants applying with a M.D. or equivalent degree must be eligible for a Georgia medical license to meet the minimum qualifications.