Come Work With Us At The Kellogg Eye Center
The Kellogg Eye Center, Department of Ophthalmology is one of the largest eye research departments in the country. We have a modern lab layout, with open bays, which really does facilitate communication between labs. We collaborate with numerous other labs in the institute, and these interactions are critical for the team-based approach we take to science.
LAB PHILOSOPHY
The job satisfaction of lab members is paramount, and all efforts, within reason, will be made to adjust to each individual's needs.
Input from lab members is critical for important lab decisions, and Jason will actively seek out opinions of those in the lab (including ideas for improving management style and mentorship).
We operate as a team, meaning that we (including Jason) will pitch in to help with tasks that are least desirable but necessary for lab success.
No matter their level of experience, lab members will think critically about their experimental results and form their own "take-aways" before sharing with others and asking their opinion.
Our goal is to do meaningful science that we believe will improve the lives of patients. Reproducibility is paramount. Public recognition should not be the primary driver of our science.
LAB METHODS
We are experts in primary culture of finicky retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) from animals and humans. We are emerging experts in human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) RPE cultures as well.
We have significant experience in basic and advanced fluorescence microscopy methods.
We utilize standard cell biology methods, including Western blotting, ELISA, qPCR, and fluorometric assays with a plate reader.
We do a small amount of work in animal models, mainly for testing of promising drug candidates. More recently, we have started to work with genetic models in mice to better probe RPE lipid metabolism.
We are striving to deploy both lipidomic and transcriptomic analysis to our research.
Finally, we have developed tools to monitor RPE metabolism in real time, and then, via collaborations, we also track the fate of metabolites via tracing experiments and mass spectrometry.
If your philosophy meshes with the lab's philosophy above and you are interested in working with us, we'd love to hear from you.
We consider applicants from all levels of experience: undergraduates, medical students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research staff. We will post formal job offerings here when they are live. If no job postings appear, that means we don't have formal paid positions open. Even without a formal opening, if you still are interested in working with us, we'd appreciate hearing from you. Please contact Jason with your reasons for applying, your 5- and 10-year goals, and what your ideal research job would look like.
A note about research volunteers in the lab: While we are excited to host undergraduate and graduate volunteers, the type of work we do requires significant training before one is independent enough to do experiments on their own. We therefore ask for a long-term commitment from volunteers (at least a year, ideally more, and at least 8-10 hours a week). Further, if a volunteer doesn't have significant prior bench experience, our ability to host is more limited because such a candidate requires intensive mentoring from current lab members before they are able to operate more independently, and we want to respect the bandwidth of current lab members.