Research Molecular Biologist

Summary

This position is located within the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Plains Area (PA), at the Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center in College Station, TX. In this position, you will help to develop cost-effective methods for controlling foodborne pathogens associated with poultry and livestock.

Duties

• Develop cost-effective methods for controlling foodborne pathogens associated with poultry and livestock.
• Identify and apply genetic, proteomic, and kinomic research approaches that are most likely to provide new information and products that will reduce Salmonella, Campylobacter, HPAI, and other foodborne pathogens;
• From colonization in poultry, swine, and beef/dairy cattle in order to decrease the risk of foodborne illness.
• Provide new information necessary to rationally design strategies to increase resistance against foodborne pathogen colonization in food producing animals.
• Enhance the safety of food supplies derived from commercially reared animals.
• Generate critical transcriptomic and kinomic data on host-pathogen interactions of Salmonella and other foodborne pathogens.
• Operation in high-containment environments, specifically BSL-3 facilities, for HPAI-related studies.
• Generate data for national food safety initiatives, especially regarding HPAI detection and survivability in meat and other food products.
• Elucidate effective immunometabolic molecular targets for intervention in the host-pathogen network that can be exploited by commercially viable intervention strategies, techniques, and technologies.
• Determine molecular immunometabolic biomarkers of foodborne pathogen colonization in host animals and virulence factors in foodborne pathogens to aid in detection and intervention efforts.
• Leading virus detection, viability assays, virus dissemination animal trials, meat product safety analysis, and virus survivability studies.

Qualifications

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including specialized experience and/or education, as defined below. Basic Requirements for Biology Series, 0401 Degree: biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position. OR Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major, as shown above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. Additional Requirements In addition to meeting the basic requirements described above, applicants must also meet additional qualification requirements as stated below. GS-12: Applicants must demonstrate at least one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-11 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is experience directly related to the position to be filled. The specialized experience requirements for the GS-12 level of this position are: planning, conducting, and reporting research on food animals and their interactions with foodborne pathogens; conducting and reporting individual or team research on proteomics and kinomics; utilizing molecular techniques; advanced cell culture methods, and preparing reports of research results for review of peers and scientific communities. OR Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree. Related degrees may include Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Animal Science, Food Science, Genetics, Biological Science, and Biochemistry. OR Combination of graduate level education and experience as described above. GS-13: Applicants must demonstrate at least one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-12 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is experience directly related to the position to be filled. The specialized experience requirements for the GS-13 level of this position are: designing and conducting research on food animals and their interactions with foodborne pathogens; evaluating and interpreting proteomic or kinomic research results; BSL-3 laboratory research; HPAI research, and preparing reports of research results for review of peers and scientific communities. GS-14: Applicants must demonstrate at least one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-13 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is experience directly related to the position to be filled. The specialized experience requirements for the GS-14 level of this position are: planning, conducting, and leading a research program related to host-foodborne pathogen interactions and mitigation; utilizing molecular methods and analyses to elucidate metabolic and immunological processes; and preparing reports of research results for review of peers and scientific communities. GS-15: Applicants must demonstrate at least one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-14 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is experience directly related to the position to be filled. The specialized experience requirements for the GS-15 level of this position are: managing and leading a collaborative research team on activities related to host-pathogen interactions relevant to foodborne pathogens and food animals and bioinformatic signal transduction analysis at the transcriptomic, proteomic, and kinomic-levels; utilizing and modifying complex molecular methods and analyses to elucidate metabolic and immunologic processes; interacting with the scientific community and other stakeholder groups for technology transfer of research findings relative to pre-harvest food safety detection and intervention; and preparing reports of research results for review of peers and scientific communities. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. To further support your qualifications, it is strongly recommended that you submit a one-page abstract of your MS thesis and/or Ph.D. dissertation. Failure to do so could result in loss of your consideration/referral. Also, please submit a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of persons familiar with your stature, contributions, recognition; any honors or awards received; memberships in professional or honor societies; invitations to make presentations at scientific/technical meetings; scientific society office and committee assignments; presentations (other than invitation); and publications. Applicants must be available to report for duty at the time a selection is made. Selections are typically made within 30 days of the closing date of the announcement.

Education

Please see above for education qualification requirement information.

How to apply

Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (normally 8:00a.m. - 4:00p.m., Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration.