Overview | New Jersey’s academic health center, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) takes an integrated approach to educating students, providing clinical care, and conducting research, all with the goal of improving human health. Aligned with Rutgers University–New Brunswick and collaborating university wide, RBHS includes eight schools, a behavioral health network, and five centers and institutes that focus on cancer treatment and research, neuroscience, advanced biotechnology and medicine, environmental and occupational health, and health care policy and aging research.
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Our clinical and academic facilities are located throughout the state—at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, including Piscataway; and at locations in Newark, Scotch Plains, Somerset, Stratford, and other locations. Clinical partners include Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, Newark’s University Hospital in Newark, and other affiliates.
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Posting Summary | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is seeking a Research Associate II for the Child Health Institute at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
Under the direction of Dr. Mark Rossi (Principal Investigator), the Research Associate II (RA II) will be responsible for the design, analysis, interpretation, and presentation in oral and written form, a project focused on “Lateral hypothalamic circuit dysfunction underlying the development of diet-induced obesity”. The goal of this project is to determine how hypothalamic neuron populations that are critical for regulating food intake and body weight become dysfunctional during obesity.
The RA II will conduct specialized research requiring complex mouse models, involving specialized genotyping, breeding, handling, and multiple experimental techniques, including brain slice synaptic physiology, animal behavioral tests, sophisticated multiphoton microscopy and imaging techniques, and computational analytical approaches. The project requires an expert with experience and skills to develop animal models and ex vivo brain slice models to study the mechanisms of human health and disease.
Among the key duties of this position are the following: - Determine how hypothalamic neurons contribute to the pathogenesis of diet-induced obesity using a variety of techniques in the lab.
- Perform whole-cell patch clamp recordings from hypothalamic neurons throughout the onset of diet-induced obesity.
- Perform in vivo deep brain calcium imaging to understand how hypothalamic neurons alter their responsivity to food consumption throughout diet-induced obesity.
- Perform complex rescue-of-function experiments to elucidate the causal relationship between hypothalamic neuron activity and the pathogenesis of diet-induced obesity.
- Perform all surgeries and data collection for these experiments.
- Analyze the data using custom Python code and interpret the results.
- Assist the Principal Investigator in responding to lab safety and animal welfare audits at least twice a year.
- Ensures that all lab equipment is operating properly; obtains quotes for frequently used or expensive items (i.e. Grin lenses, antibodies, etc.); and submits purchase recommendations to the PI of equipment and supplies needed in the lab.
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