The Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has assembled a multidisciplinary team of scientists to respond to serious viral disease threats, including AIDS, chronic viral infection-associated diseases, newly emerging viral diseases and infectious diseases of the elderly. Our programs are intended to span the continuum between basic and clinical science, in which discoveries are rapidly advanced from the level of molecular and cellular biology through animal models and ultimately into clinical testing. The development of this unique program in immunology and virology provides an important training opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at OHSU. This is why an important part of our mission is the training of young scientists in newer academic disciplines emerging at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute.

Our laboratory is focused on establishing RhCMV as model to study cytomegalovirus immunology and pathology in a relevant animal species, the rhesus macaque. We have ongoing collaborations all around the world and we have created highly collaborative research partnerships with whom we have developed a novel vaccine approach against prevalent human diseases including HIV, tuberculosis and malaria using CMV based vaccine vectors. We furthermore have ongoing collaborations focused on developing new prophylactic and treatment approaches against CMV itself. Our work has resulted in numerous high impact publications, approved patents as well as funded grant applications from national funding agencies and private foundations. We have created a highly successful, cutting edge research program by combining approaches originating from different scientific fields including virology, immunology and genetic engineering by recruiting talent with diverse training across multiple disciplines.

 

The candidate for the here described position will be in a senior leadership role within the lab as he/she will be the most senior scientist involved in day to day research operations. Hence, we expect the candidate to take charge of managing all ongoing projects in the lab and to delegate work to junior lab personnel to produce data needed for presentations, publication and research grant submissions. After consulting with the PI about ongoing projects, the staff scientist is expected to manage ongoing experimental work in the lab independently utilizing resources and personal available in the research group and the institute. As the most experienced scientist in the laboratory, the candidate will also be expected to teach and supervise undergraduate and graduate students, junior scientist and technical personal and it will be part of his/her responsibility to evaluate the performance and professional progress of junior lab members for annual performance reviews. The successful candidate will work in a virology laboratory, where he/she is expected to be able to perform, modify, teach and supervise all basic virological techniques needed to characterize and evaluate CMV isolates, mutants and vaccine vectors constructs. This will include titrations (TCID50 and IFA based), replication kinetics (growth curves, mRNA isolation and qPCR), protein expression (immunoblot) as well as classical and next generation sequencing techniques needed for quality control purposes. For all scientific work performed, it will the candidate’s responsibility to analyze and evaluate the data and to transform the results in a format presentable in oral or written form within the lab, the institute, or at national or international conferences. As an experienced researcher, we will depend on the candidate to plan and design new research projects and to contribute to grant and manuscript writing to fund current and future research within the group.

 

Prior experience in working with herpesviruses or in vector construction and production is desired. Furthermore, prior work in primate models, especially primate immunology with the focus and primate adaptive immune responses and vaccinology are preferred. As our work has resulted in continuing publication in high impact factor journals, this position offers the opportunity for further career development in the biomolecular sciences learning new traits and techniques that will be valuable for future employment as an independent principal investigator or in commercial biotechnology. As our work relies on the contribution of numerous collaborators to be able to cooperatively produce cutting edge research, we are looking for an experience scientist with project management experience in advancing decentralized team science programs across diverse institutions and disciplines. Given the number of contributing scientist needed to develop our projects, focus in candidate selection will be on experience in collaboration and project coordination over individual scientific achievements. Please note that this position is offered at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy institute located on the OHSU's West Campus in Beaverton.

• Doctoral degree in relevant field and 5+ years of relevant post-doctoral work experience.
• Comprehensive experience at the scientist level in all aspects of standard laboratory operations and scientific programs.
• Possess energy and enthusiasm to independently progress on multiple research projects simultaneously, including prioritizing and executing multiple tasks each day.
• Exemplify solid leadership to support and assist team members, including mentoring and receiving feedback from the team, as well as earning the trust of staff.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, analytical, and organizational skills.
• Personify a collaborative nature in completing projects and resolving problems.

• Must be proficient with computers running Apple and/or Windows/PC applications (e.g. MS Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint).

• Doctoral/postdoctoral research experience in herpesvirus research and/or NHP models.
• Previous experience working on Cytomegalovirus or other herpesviruses.
• Prior experience working with in in vivo infectious disease and/or vaccination models.
• Prior experience working in NHP immunology.
• Prior experience in viral vaccine vector constriction.
• Prior experience with basic virology techniques to determine attenuation and protein expression in vitro.
• Prior experience generating and analyzing next-generation sequencing data.
• Prior experience in project management.
• Prior experience in data collection and presentation as well as manuscript and grant writing and submission.
• Prior experience in team leadership.

Oregon Health & Science University values a diverse and culturally competent workforce. We are proud of our commitment to being an equal opportunity, affirmative action organization that does not discriminate against applicants on the basis of any protected class status, including disability status and protected veteran status. Individuals with diverse backgrounds and those who promote diversity and a culture of inclusion are encouraged to apply. To request reasonable accommodation contact the Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Department at 503-494-5148 or aaeo@ohsu.edu.