Brown Lab Research Assistant

Qualifications:
• Pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in engineering, biology, public health, or another technical field at UNC Chapel Hill
• Previous experience with molecular methods (PCR, RT-PCR) desired, but not required
• Attention to detail, critical
• Willing to work ~10 hours per week

Project Description:
The purpose of this overall study is to investigate a shared sanitation intervention trial based in Maputo, Mozambique and the impact on child health and household/compound environmental conditions. Several environmental samples are collected such as fecal sludge, bioaerosol, soil, flies, stored water, animal waste, and prepared foods and will be processed for multiple enteric pathogen detection and quantification. The projects will consist of using commercial extraction kits to extract total nucleic acids and process these extracts on a TaqMan Array Card (TAC) using the QuantStudio7 Flex. Additional help with laboratory survey data entry and management will be needed.

Job Duties:
• Take detailed notes and records
• Process environmental samples (flies, food, fecal sludge, air, animal waste)
• Prepare samples for automated and manual extractions (total nucleic acids)
• Label and store samples until TAC processing
• Prepare and conduct TAC analyses/runs
• Data entry and survey cleaning, as needed
o Entering laboratory data and managing survey data
• General lab cleaning
• Upload sample results into an online data management tool

If interested, send your CV to Gouthami Rao: grao@unc.edu