The EPA National Student Services Contract has an immediate opening for a Bachelor's level full time Cell Line Laboratory Support position with the Office of Research and Development at the EPA facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.

The Office of Research and Development at the EPA supports high-quality research to improve the scientific basis for decisions on national environmental issues and help EPA achieve its environmental goals. Research is conducted in a broad range of environmental areas by scientists in EPA laboratories and at universities across the country.

What the EPA project is about

EPA's Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure (CCTE) coordinates the High Throughput Toxicology (HTT) Research Program, which is part of EPA's broader Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS) Strategic Research Action Plan. Information and methods are needed to make better-informed, more-timely decisions about chemicals. The EPA's HTT research program within CSS is designed to meet this challenge. Current chemical testing is expensive and time consuming. Only a small fraction of chemicals have been fully evaluated for potential adverse human health effects. CCTE is working to determine how to change the current approaches used to evaluate the safety of chemicals. CCTE research integrates advances in biology, biotechnology, chemistry, and computer science. Automated chemical screening technologies (called "high-throughput screening assays") and informatics are being used to screen thousands of chemicals and identify important biological processes that may be disrupted by chemicals. Mathematical and advanced computer models are being developed to trace those disruptions to a related dose and human exposure and help link perturbations in biological processes to adverse health impacts. The combined information helps prioritize chemicals based on potential human health risks. Using HTT testing and computational methods, thousands of chemicals can be evaluated more quickly for potential risk at a reduced cost while also limiting the number of laboratory animal-based tests.

A major part of EPA's HTT research is the Toxicity Forecaster (ToxCast). ToxCast is a multi-year effort launched in 2007 that uses high-throughput methods to expose living cells or isolated proteins to chemicals. The cells or proteins are then screened for changes in biological activity that may be indicative of potential toxic effects and eventually potential adverse health effects. As of 2013 ToxCast has evaluated over 2,000 chemicals from a broad range of sources including: industrial and consumer products, food additives, and potentially "green" chemicals that could be safer alternatives to existing chemicals. Chemicals were evaluated in over 700 high-throughput assays that cover a range of high-level cell responses and approximately 300 signaling pathways. Although research is ongoing to determine which assays under what conditions may lead to toxicological responses, a low-cost, comprehensive screen of potential biological perturbations is desirable. An assay that can provide highly multiplexed measurements of gene expression (i.e. transcriptomics) across a range of cell types and chemicals and chemical mixtures is currently being used.

What experience and skills will you gain?

As a team member, you will provide laboratory support, data collection and data analysis to support a number of research efforts including 1) understanding the health risks of environmental mixtures, and 2) building and characterizing computational tools to interpret HTTr data generated in human cell lines and in the tissues of rodents. As part of these efforts the student may also 1) create and characterize human cell lines that lack the expression of genes important in mediating the effects of chemicals and mixtures, 2) expose cell lines to chemicals and chemical mixtures and examine gene expression, 3) utilize a gene expression database to build and characterize gene expression biomarkers predictive of activation or suppression of individual factors important in toxicology, and 4) assist in animal testing of chemicals and mixtures including making dosing solutions, dosing animals, sacrifice of animals, removal and processing of tissues.

Lab support responsibilities:

Cell culture and maintenance of cell lines;
• Creation and analysis of knockout cell pools using Crispr-Cas9 technology;
• Exposing cells to chemicals or chemical mixtures;
• Isolation of DNA, RNA and protein from human or animal cells;
• Creation of dosing solutions for rodent gavage studies;
• Gavage dosing of rodents, euthanasia of rodents and processing of tissues.

Computational support responsibilities:

• Use computational methods to assist in building and characterizing gene expression biomarkers;
• Use the biomarkers to identify chemicals or chemical mixtures that activate or suppress important toxicological targets of environmental chemicals;
• Analysis of gene expression from raw data using Partek Flow or R packages such as DESeq2;
• Annotation of databases to determine relationships between chemicals and protein targets;
• Application of word mining techniques for annotation of databases.

Communication support responsibilities:

• Participating as a member of a multi-disciplinary research team;
• Documenting all research efforts;
• Presenting work in lab meetings and at scientific conferences as appropriate or required.
  
  

Required Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Demonstrated education and/or experience in cell culture, creation and analysis of knockout pools with Crispr-Cas9, RT-qPCR, Western analysis, chemical exposure of cells, carrying out studies in which rodents are treated with chemicals or mixtures;
• Strong written, oral and electronic communication skills;
• Proficient in Excel, Word, PowerPoint.

Desired Knowledge, Skills, Work Experience, and Education

• Experience using R language is desired.

Location: This job will be located EPA's facility in Research Triangle Park, NC.

Salary: Selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU and will receive an hourly wage of $23.37 for hours worked.

Hours: Full-time.

Travel: No travel expected.

Expected start date: The position is full time and expected to begin May 2024. The selected applicant will become a temporary employee of ORAU working as a contractor to EPA.

For more information, contact EPANSSC@orau.org Do not contact EPA directly.

• Be at least 18 years of age and
• Have earned at least a BA/BS degree in one of the following fields: biology, chemistry, toxicology, pharmacology, environmental science, or a related field from an accredited university or college within the last 24 months and
• Be a citizen of the United States of America or a Legal Permanent Resident.

EPA ORD employees, their spouses, and children are not eligible to participate in this program.