Department Overview

The Knight Cardiovascular Institute (KCVI) is recognized as a top integrated center for cardiovascular clinical care, translational research and professional training in all aspects of heart and vascular disease. Guided by a multi-disciplinary approach, researchers and clinicians drive a vibrant translational research program, which focuses on delivering the latest knowledge and cutting edge care to patients. Specifically, research at KCVI seeks to improve patient outcomes by achieving earlier diagnosis of disease, more accurate monitoring of its progression, and tailoring therapy to the molecular basis of disease.

Function/Duties of Position

The Sports Cardiology and Cardiomyopathy Sections within the Knight Cardiovascular Institute (KCVI) seek a staff scientist with expertise in translational biology to support translational and clinical research in exercise and in cardiomyopathies. Working under supervision, the staff scientist will design and conduct experiments to assess pathophysiology, multiomics, and response to interventions in cardiomyopathies and in exercise. Additionally, in collaboration with the clinical research team, multiomics studies on patients undergoing exercise or other intervention trials will be conducted. The duties of the staff scientist are meant to bridge the bench-to-bedside continuum working with physician scientists focused on cardiomyopathies and sports cardiology, which includes designing and conducting experiments, drafting and executing protocols, assisting in grants applications, and overseeing the lab activities where multiple researchers work on the same lab mission. The staff scientist will collaborate closely with clinical research staff to ensure appropriate handling of protected health information (PHI) and adherence to institutional, sponsor, and regulatory requirements for research data.

Study Protocol Development and Supervision
- Develop and maintain scalable, reproducible workflows for a translational biology lab that can be implemented in the bench and bedside

Experimental Biology
- Develop study-specific approaches

- Conduct rigorous experiments in the appropriate models and/or supervise lab technicians
- Maintain a detailed record of experiments and approaches

Data Management, Governance & Compliance Support
- Develop and maintain analysis-ready datasets, metadata, and data dictionaries; assist with building/maintaining databases or trackers used by the team
- Support documentation needed for audits, reproducibility, and data provenance (e.g., analysis logs, code notebooks, QC reports)

Research Collaboration & Scientific Communication
- Meet with sports cardiology and cardiomyopathy investigators, clinicians, and research staff to clarify analysis questions, define deliverables, and communicate results

Academic Output & Professional Development

- Contribute to manuscripts, abstracts, posters, presentations, and grant applications with review by senior staff

- Maintain current awareness of relevant translational biology methods and cardiomyopathy literature; participate in lab/section meetings and training opportunities

Required Qualifications

• Doctoral degree AND minimum of 7 years of relevant post-doc work. Internal candidates must have completed 3-5 years at the Assistant Staff Scientist levels
• Experience with translational biology, including various models of disease, wet-lab experiments, and integrating multiomics assessment
• Familiarity with animal models of human disease
• Famiiarity with cellular models of human disease
• Familiarity with integrating multi-modal assessments of disease
• Familiarity with bench-to-bedside evaluations
• Experience with writing grant proposals and manuscripts
• Ability to implement workflows/pipelines using best practices (version control, documentation)
• Strong written and oral communication skills; ability to explain analyses to colleages
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to manage priorities under supervision

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with cardiology and exercise medicine
• Familiarity with cardiomyopathy and/or exercise biology
• Strong experience and proven track record with experiments using cellular and animal models
• Strong experience with genetics and the biochemical testing in cellular and animal models