St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is recognized one of the Best Places to Work by Glassdoor and People magazine’s 50 Companies That Care. Our mission is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. We look for the best people to join our teams and provide world-class facilities, state-of-the-art technologies, and extraordinary support to ensure scientific progress to support our mission. The Center for Modeling Pediatric Diseases (CMPD) plays a key role in providing that support. As a new initiative at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital (SJCRH), its mission is to serve the research community by delivering high-quality, fully characterized, patient-derived, pluripotent cells. Our aim is to generate these cells on our fully automated, state-of-the-art, robotic system. Our methodologies are based on the Nobel Prize-winning work of Shinya Yamanaka, which culminated in the ability to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from terminally differentiated human somatic cells. These iPSCs permit the derivation of both normal and disease phenotype, patient-matched cell lines, and are, therefore, key to developing personalized medicine approaches. iPSCs provide a vital tool to study the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in patient-specific responses to treatments and in the future will form the basis of creating patient-derived, patient-matched cellular therapeutics. Since iPSCs are derived from somatic cells, they can be created without harvesting vital stem cell pools in the body. For example, CMPD is able to generate iPSCs from blood and urine, which are collected as part of routine clinical monitoring. We therefore circumvent the ethical issues encountered by working with stem cells from donated oocytes or embryonic stem cells. As CMPD establishes our methodologies and implements our automation we seek an exceptional and motivated individual who will be able to execute standard operating procedures accurately and efficiently. The transition from manual to automated requires a highly organized, methodical, and algorithmic mindset. This role provides an exceptional opportunity to learn automation programming routines. Ability to demonstrate attention to detail is key, as is a desire to work in a highly reproducible manner, by close adherence to optimized SOPs. However, an ability to innovate, and determine where evolutions can be made to improve time and cost efficiencies, in coordination with the team, is also highly desirable. There are opportunities to learn bioinformatics and data analysis skills, including running machine learning pipelines to evaluate microscope images of developing iPSC colonies. Our automation system includes the latest model instruments: Hamilton Vantage; Hamilton LabElite; Cytation 5; Cytomat (500 capacity); KingFisher Presto; BioStore III. If you are excited about using state-of-the-art instrumentation and if you are able to take a one-off research experiment and optimize it to make it unbreakably reproducible, and would like to do for biology what Henry T Ford did for car manufacturing, then we would like to hear from you! The successful candidate will assist the CMPD Director to: Develop daily implementation of advanced cell culture techniques, including reprogramming/biobanking protocols, and the ability to undertake sophisticated characterization assays. Follows SOPs necessary to automate various manual stem cell workflows such as splitting of stem cells, the purification of specific populations, freezing cells, setting up and analyzing various quality control and characterization assays. Assists with the cryopreservation of bar-coded samples using an automated liquid N2 system. Manages specific, but limited, laboratory functions such as inventory management, ordering, instrument maintenance etc. Demonstrates effort to increase knowledge in relevant areas of research and participates in the presentation and publication of research results, if necessary. Conducts scientific projects and maintains efficient laboratory operations with minimal supervision. Data entry into various databases Assists with stem cell training. Performs other duties as assigned or directed in order to meet the goals and objectives of the CMPD Core and of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Maintains regular and predictable attendance. Minimum Education and/or Training: Bachelor's degree in relevant scientific area is required. Minimum Experience: Two (2) years of relevant, post-degree work experience is required. No experience is required with a Master's degree. Compensation In recognition of certain U.S. state and municipal pay transparency laws, St. Jude is including a reasonable estimate of the compensation range for this role. This is an estimate offered in good faith and a specific salary offer takes into account factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. It is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the salary range and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current salary range is $60,320 - $105,040 per year for the role of Senior Researcher - Center for Modeling Pediatric Disease. Explore our exceptional benefits! Diversity, Equity and Inclusion St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has a diverse, global patient population and workforce, built on the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. Our founder Danny Thomas envisioned a hospital that would treat children of the world—regardless of race, religion or a family’s ability to pay. Learn more about our history and commitment. Today, we continue the mission to advance cures and means of prevention for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. As we accelerate this progress globally, we believe our legacy of diversity, equity and inclusion is foundational to success. With the commitment of leaders at all levels of the organization, we strive to ensure the St. Jude culture, leadership approaches and talent processes are equitable and culturally responsive. View our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report to learn about the hospital’s roots in diversity, equity and inclusion, where we are today and our aspirations for an even better future. St. Jude is an Equal Opportunity Employer No Search Firms St. Jude Children's Research Hospital does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. Please do not call or email. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee or other representative at St. Jude via email, the internet or in any form and/or method without a valid written search agreement in place and approved by HR will result in no fee being paid in the event the candidate is hired by St. Jude.