Job Openings

Note: Application for open positions must be made through the Human Resources website. Please click the apply button below the position description to be taken directly to the posting on the Human Resources website.

Research Tech I (Posting # S09866P)

The Rosenberg Research Group has an opening for a Research Technician. This person will assist in daily operations of the lab. This includes the maintenance of tissue culture facilities, ordering, and organization of laboratory materials

Research Professional III (Posting # S10000P)

The Etheridge Research Group has an opening for a Research Professional III. The incumbent will seek to develop a clear grasp of the historical and current literature surrounding T. cruzi with an in-depth understanding of molecular techniques currently available and of the parasite biology, life cycle and host disease progression. As part of the routine experimental work the incumbent will be expected to become proficient in the routine culturing, host cell infection, and freezing/archiving of parasites and derived parasite cell lines within the lab and adhere to the standards of working in a BSL-2 facility.

DevOps & Systems Administrative Specialist (Posting # S09736P)

The VEuPathDB project at the University of Georgia (UGA) is seeking to make one or more additions to our DevOps & Systems Administration Team. Both junior and senior incumbents will be considered. The VEuPathDB.org Bioinformatics Resource Center is an open-source project supporting scientific data-mining websites used on a daily basis by thousands of researchers worldwide, for discovery research in infectious disease biology and public health. The project staff responsible for these resources includes 60+ scientific and IT professionals based at UGA, Univ. Pennsylvania (Penn), Univ. Notre Dame, and institutions in the UK and elsewhere.

The DevOps & Systems Administration team works with staff software developers, database administrators, data scientists and data center managers. This position will directly interact with the DevOps & Sys Admin team, the UGA InfoSec team and their equivalents at Penn, and with project leadership and other staff across all performance sites, including the Kissinger Research Group at UGA.

The primary role of this team is to ensure the security, integrity, and availability of VEuPathDB IT infrastructure, through the maintenance of existing infrastructure and the selection, deployment, and management of new hardware and software technologies. Operations include deployment automation, monitoring & alerting, and instrumentation dashboards for applications and services supporting terabyte-scale, compute-intensive IT. Our activities are increasingly focused on infrastructure as software, site reliability engineering, and DevOps collaborations with project developers.

We seek forward-looking DevOps/SysAdmin personnel who are eager to work with professional IT staff to facilitate access to and exploration of integrated scientific data helping to ameliorate disease worldwide. Excellent benefits, including educational opportunities.

Lab Manager (Posting # S09094P)

The Rosenberg laboratory has an opening for a Lab Manager. This person, in addition to carrying out experimental procedures, will be in charge of daily operations of the lab. This includes the maintenance of tissue culture facilities, ordering and organization of laboratory materials, and more generally supporting a positive laboratory environment and facilitating the carrying out of experiments by laboratory personnel.

RESEARCH PROFESSIONAL IV (Posting # S08549P)

The Tarleton Research Group has an opening for a Research Professional IV. The successful candidate will be involved in running research projects, developing technical and computation methods, conducting research, and collaborating with PIs across campus and other universities. The individual will also write and submit research grants to federal agencies, and if funded will design the research program and independently oversee its execution. The Research Professional IV will write and present the results of their work and their team’s work to collaborators and funding agencies. The individual will also have excellent communication skills since they will be writing manuscripts. They will need experience in bioinformatics, imaging and immunoparasitolgy.

Sr. Research Tech (Posting # S08014P)

The Rozario Research Group has an opening for a Research Technician. The successful candidate will directly train and supervise junior technicians in daily maintenance tasks such as lab waste management, labware cleaning and sterilization, preparations of lab stocks, managing DNA sequencing, ordering, managing deliveries to the lab, and more. The Senior Research Technician will also train and supervise other lab members in animal handling (rats), in vitro culture of the tapeworm Hymenolepis diminuta, and microinjection techniques. While laboratory maintenance is a critical responsibility for this position, the Senior Research Technician will also perform primary research under the supervision of the Principle Investigator, which would include wet-lab bench work, data analysis, literature review, and communicating research findings at meetings/conferences.

Research Technician (Posting # S09293P)

The Moreno Research Group is looking for a research technician to perform general laboratory chores and supervise lab students.

The laboratory studies the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, an important intracellular parasite that infects >2 billion people worldwide. Most human infections are uncomplicated, but the parasite can persist, and the infection can be reactivated in immunosuppressed patients like those infected with HIV. During pregnancy, infection causes congenital toxoplasmosis with serious consequences for the fetus. The lab studies signaling pathways important for pathogenesis and drug discovery.

The job involves general laboratory tasks like maintaining cells and parasite lines, organization of reagents and laboratory inventories, training and supervising undergraduate students, etc. In addition, this technician will be involved in ongoing research projects on either drug discovery or calcium signaling.

This position would be a great opportunity for those senior students interested in acquiring research experience in preparation to apply to graduate school or for a career in science.

Postdoctoral Associate (Posting #G/R20167P)

These post-docs will be part of the laboratory of Silvia Moreno to study Calcium Signaling in Toxoplasma gondii. The projects involve characterization of the role of specific calcium signaling proteins in the biology of T. gondii, and their expression and further physiological characterization using heterologous systems. These projects entail collaborations and training by Calcium channel experts and global analysis of calcium-triggered signaling networks.

Ca2+ signaling regulates pathogenicity of apicomplexan parasites, which cause persistent mortality and morbidity worldwide through diseases including malaria, toxoplasmosis, and cryptosporidiosis. The phylum member Toxoplasma gondii infects >2 billion people worldwide. T. gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite whose replication and dissemination within its host are the main mechanisms by which it causes disease. Ca2+ signaling is central to T. gondii’s ability to complete its infection cycle and thus its resulting pathology. However, many of the molecular elements of the initial Ca2+ signals in T. gondii are unknown or uncharacterized. We seek to discover these molecules, specifically, the channels that enable cytosolic Ca2+ influx, through the plasma and intracellular stores membranes. There is very little information about the functional characteristics and roles of Ca2+ channels in T. gondii. Channels are critical for the successful unicellular life of parasites, and they could be targeted by many therapeutically useful agents.

Recent references from the lab:
• Márquez-Nogueras, K.M., Chasen, N. M. Hortua Triana, M.A., Kuo, I. Y. Moreno, S.N.J. (2021). Calcium signaling through a Transient Receptor Channel is important for Toxoplasma gondii growth. Elife, 10:e63417.
A comment about this work was published: TRP channels, the missing link for Ca 2+ tuning by a unicellular eukaryotic parasite?, Theopold U. and Barragan, A. Cell Calcium, 2021 98:102449
• Li, Z.H., King, T., Ayong, L. Vella, S. Chasen, N., Patel, S. Moreno, S.N.J. (2021). A plastid Two-Pore Channel that is relevant for organelle integrity and whole cell fitness. Nat. Commun. 12(1):5802.
A comment about this work was published: Ca2+ Signalling is a Conserved Game of Contact (2022). Casbolt, H. and Campanella, M. SAGE Journals Vol 5. Article Commentary. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152564221095961
• Vella, S.A., Moore, C.A., Li, Z., Hortua Triana, M.A., Potapenko, E. Moreno, S.N.J. (2021). The Role of Potassium and Host Calcium Signaling in Toxoplasma gondii Egress. Cell Calcium, 94:102337
• Herneisen, A.L., Li, Z.H., Chan, A.W., Moreno, S.N.J., Lourido, S. (2022) De novo mapping of the apicomplexan Ca2+-responsive proteome. Elife 11: e80336. doi: 10.7554/eLife.80336.