Diagnostic Technician II - NGS

The Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory within the College of Veterinary Medicine is seeking applicants for a Diagnostic Technician.

This position is for a BSL-2 laboratory assistant, (NGS Specialist/Analyst) whose primary responsibility is to provide support to diagnostic and R&D laboratory activities needed for the test, implementation, improvement, development and validation of NGS workflows and bioinformatics pipelines as directed by the Section Head, with primary focus on wet lab work. To achieve the objectives, job responsibilities include the completion of complex, multi-step laboratory procedures involving both potentially infected animal tissues and cell culture/isolates including: nucleic acid extraction and purification from; PCR, RT-PCR and qPCR assays, primarily to support NGS work. Run complete NGS workflows involving library preparation, quantification, normalization and sequencing. Operation of multiple NGS platforms and instruments, such as but not limited to Illumina, Oxford Nanopore and Pacbio. This position requires critical thinking and a relative independence to perform and troubleshoot NGS assays under the supervision of the Section Head. The incumbent will be expected to engage in activities concerning laboratory maintenance, such as taking inventory of supplies, attending educational meetings, training and assisting undergraduate students and eventually other tasks related to laboratory safety and compliance.

This position is on-site.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Requires an associate degree and two years of relevant experience. This position may use an educational equivalency as determined relevant by a hiring manager.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Masters Degree
• Minimum of 3-years hands-on experience in developing, performing and troubleshooting NGS-based molecular assays, both targeted and untargeted, including but not limited to shotgun metagenomics, 16S amplicon sequencing, primer/assay design and validation.
• Familiarity with NGS data analysis and interpretation with focus pathogen detection and microbial genomics.

Sponsorship eligibility:

This position is not eligible for sponsorship.

Please submit the following documents:

1. Resume
2. Cover letter
3. Contact information for three professional references

Immediately and continues until position is filled.

Hourly $18.86 - $32.05