Research Specialist in Central Nervous System regeneration after brain and spinal cord injuries

Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?

The Göritz laboratory is offering a stimulating and international environment. We are part of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the world’s leading medical universities. The lab is located in Biomedicum, a state-of-the-art research building on Solna campus.

Description of the subject area

Christian Göritz’s group is studying fibrotic scar tissue formation and regeneration in the central nervous system (CNS) to develop new therapies for spinal cord and brain injuries and diseases.

We discovered a new population of perivascular cells as the source of fibrotic scar tissue (Göritz et al., Science, 2011) and identified perivascular cell-derived scar formation as a therapeutic target to achieve axonal regeneration and functional recovery following spinal cord injury (Dias et al., Cell, 2018). Recently, we showed that fibrotic scarring by perivascular cells is a conserved mechanism in the adult mammalian CNS (Dias et al., Nature Com., 2021), and that perivascular cells react locally, in a region-dependent manner, to injury (Holl et al., Nature Neurosci., 2024).

Your mission

We are seeking a highly motivated and enthusiastic research specialist to join our team. In this role, your primary duties will include conducting experiments and supporting our research group in experimental design, execution, and analyses.

As a research specialist, you will be responsible for ensuring the smooth functioning of the animal colony, including setting up matings, genotyping, and archiving. You will also perform surgeries on small rodents, particularly stereotactic-guided surgeries, and cell transplantation, as well as CNS injury/disease models. This includes spinal cord injury, ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and glioblastoma tumor models, as well as providing animal pre- and post-operative care. You are expected to evaluate animal’s functional recovery after injury using optogenetics/chemogenetics techniques and a battery of sensorimotor behavioral tests (e.g., Basso Mouse scale, horizontal ladder test and Catwalk gait analyses), as well as perform axonal tracing to evaluate axonal regeneration.

Additionally, you will perform tissue preparation and analysis using advanced methods, such as in situ hybridization, PCR, western blot, immunohistochemistry, and microscopy (light sheet and confocal imaging). You will also be involved in working within vitro cell culture (e.g., neurospheres assay, primary neuronal and fibroblast cultures) and single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.

In addition to laboratory work and research responsibilities, you will play a crucial role in the supervision of master students, PhD students, and postdocs, and assist in grant proposal, scientic manuscript writing, revision of scientific articles and applying for ethical permits.

Eligibility requirements

To be eligible for employment as a Research Specialist, in addition to holding a Degree of Doctor, PhD, or having equivalent scientific expertise, the applicant must have demonstrated research expertise as well as have documented research experience after defending their doctoral dissertation.

Assessment criteria

We are looking for highly motivated, independent, and driven candidates, with at least two first authorship publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The successful applicant will have a strong background in Neuroscience, preferentially with knowledge in CNS injury and repair.
A documented ability to independently carry out experimental research projects is required, as are good collaboration and communication skills in spoken and written English. Experience with transgenic mouse models, spinal cord and brain injury/disease models, animal behavioral testing, imaging techniques, opto-/chemo genetics techniques and bioinformatics is advantageous.

It is particularly meritorious that the applicant has shown:

• Proficiency in working with laboratory animals, with advantage given to those experienced in spinal cord and brain injury/disease models. FELASA C certification is required
• Experience with sensorimotor behavioral testing
• Solid experience with stereotactic-guided surgery and opto-/chemo genetics techniques
• Extensive experience with molecular biological techniques related to the field
• Experience with RNA expression analysis, immunohistochemistry, and confocal/light-sheet microscopy is highly desirable

It is meritorious that the applicant has shown:

• Supervisory experience
• Personal qualities such as flexibility, cooperation, and problem-solving abilities

After an overall assessment of the expertise and merits of the applicants in relation to the subject area, Karolinska Institutet will determine which of them has the best potential to contribute to a positive development of the activities at KI.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. Here, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location: Solna

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Application

We prefer that Your application is written in English, but You can also apply in Swedish. An application must contain the following documents: Resumé, qualifications and description of planned research, presented in accordance with Karolinska Institutet's qualifications portfolio.

The application must be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

Permanent position is initiated by a six months trial period.

Want to make a difference? Join us and contribute to better health for all