(According to the discussion leader, the advert is OK so here it is.)
Wanted: One HIGHLY motivated individual (to be the first person I recruit)
to work WITH me in my new research lab. First, I'll tell you what I am
looking for in a scientist; second, about one possible research project
you could work on; third, I'll tell you a little bit about myself; and
finally, I'll tell you how to respond to this advertisement.
I am looking for one person to work WITH me as either a technician,
postdoc or research assistant. You can have a BS, MS or Ph.D. and the
salary will be commensurate with your experience, what I think you can
bring to my lab, the "position title" and frankly how much you impress me
when I interview you. The salary range is from $22K to $32K and includes
benefits i.e. health insurance, you MUST be a US citizen, and MUST be
willing to work in the Bethesda, MD area, and MUST be willing to start by
1 Feb. 1997 or sooner. Funding is available for two years (and possibly
longer depending on my grant writing success). If you are being hired as a
first-time postdoc, you will be expected to write several postdoctoral
fellowships to attempt to get outside funding. If you are still
interested, read on. The perfect individual for this job would have to be
competent in molecular biology i.e. in designing and constructing
plasmids, making and purifying fusion proteins from bacteria, PCR, site
directed mutagenesis and random mutagenesis methods, doing plasmid preps,
etc. He/she would also have experience running protein and agarose gels,
western blotting, working SAFELY with radioisotopes, and performing
immunofluorescence experiments. Experience with EM a plus. He/she would
have experience working with Saccharomyces cerevisiae i.e. growing strains
in liquid and solid medium, doing gene disruptions, tetrad dissection, and
experience with 2-hybrid or other genetic screening methods would be a
plus. You have to be willing to work with rabbits and mice (these will not
be your co-workers and the lab doesn't have mice, I think?). The fusion
proteins will be used to make polyclonal antibodies in rabbits and I will
also want to "raise" ascites from monoclonal hybridoma cell lines in mice.
The person would also be familiar with the Macintosh OS and be able to
learn Filemaker Pro, Nisuswriter, DNAStar software, Photoshop, Canvas, and
Cricketgraph. I don't expect anybody to have experience in all of these
areas, but if you have some experience and impress me that you have the
capability to learn additional techniques, that will be sufficient.
One project which you may work on involves defining the function of a new
protein required for exocytosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. If you work
on this project, you would be expected to epitope tag the protein for
immunoprecipitation experiments and for immunofluorescence localization,
make temperature sensitive (or other conditional mutant) alleles of this
gene, and look for genetic interactions between your mutants and other
late-acting sec mutants. You would make fusion proteins to make polyclonal
antibodies in rabbits and do genetic screens, either 2-hybrid or
suppression screens of your mutants to look for interacting gene products.
I am Daniel TerBush and I have been recently appointed to a tenure track
position at a university in the Bethesda, MD area. My appointment starts 1
November 1996 and until I officially start I am not supposed to mention
the name of the institution in this advertisement which is why I have left
it out. I did my Ph.D. work in Dr. Ronald Holz's lab at the University of
Michigan studying exocytosis in bovine adrenal chromaffin cells. I have
recently completed a postdoc in Peter Novick's laboratory at Yale
University where I have identified a multiprotein complex required for
exocytosis in yeast (TerBush and Novick, 1995, July, JCB 130: 299-312).
To respond to this advertisement, send a cover letter and C.V. to
danter1 at aol.com. In the cover letter you must confirm in the FIRST
paragraph that you are a US citizen, that working in the Bethesda, MD area
is OK and that you can start by 1 Jan. 1997. Tell me in a general way
about your work experience and cover anything that isn't necessarily easy
to fit into a C.V. (For instance, I started a Macintosh computer repair
company as a graduate student to make extra money but this is not
something that fits nicely on a scientific C.V.). Also, tell me what level
of education you have BS, MS or Ph.D. and the type of position you are
looking for. Depending on the number of responses I receive, I may not
reply right away but I will try to respond to all applications. Do not
send your information twice! Before 28 Oct., I'll be in the New Haven, CT
area and after that in Bethesda. You will have to be willing to come to me
to be interviewed and I do not have funding at this time to pay for your
visit so keep this in mind when you are applying.
Finally, I just wanted to comment on why the "position title" is not more
focused, i.e. postdoc only, or technician only, etc. Since you are the
first person I am hiring, I dearly want someone with a lot of technical
skill i.e. a postdoc or experienced technician which would be a big help
to me because I would have to spend less time training. But I am willing
to consider someone less experienced with a burning desire to learn and do
research and willing to commit at least two years of time to my lab. If
you are applying as a postdoc, currently I do not have a technician. I
expect to have additional funding in April which will allow me to hire
one, but until then (or if the funding falls through) you will have to be
willing to share the "lab chores" (there is a departmental dishwasher but
all medium, plates etc. will have to be made by us until we get a
technician). So, as a postdoc you had better have the attitude of "if
something needs to get done I'll do it myself" since you won't necessarily
have someone to do it for you. If you are applying as a research
assistant, you should pretty much have the same attitude. If you are
applying as a technician, will be getting stuck with a lot of the "lab
chores" as part of your job responsibilities. However, if you impress me
with your ability to "get science done", I'll use my April money to try to
hire a "lab aide" to make solutions and pour plates, etc. to free up more
of your time for more productive work.
