Hope. Care. Cure. These three simple words capture what we do at Seattle Children’s – to help every child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible.  Are you ready to engage with a mission-driven organization that is life-changing to many, and touches the hearts of all? #HOPECARECURE

As one of the nation’s top five pediatric research centers, Seattle Children’s Research Institute is dedicated to providing hope, care, and cures to help every child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible.

Our investigators are involved in hundreds of projects that cover every phase of research, from studying how diseases work to improving investigational therapies. They have pioneered groundbreaking cystic fibrosis treatments and cutting-edge cancer therapies that help a child’s immune system defeat cancer, and made other major contributions to pediatric medicine. 

Researchers work in close collaboration with one another, their colleagues at partner institutions including the University of Washington and Fred Hutch and our healthcare providers at Seattle Children’s Hospital, one of U.S. News & World Report’s top children’s hospitals. This collaboration is one of our key strengths, allowing our faculty to draw on a variety of disciplines and techniques as they pursue solutions to some of medicine’s most complex problems.

The Baertsch Lab at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute is hiring a motivated post-doctoral scientist to join an expanding research program focused on understanding the cellular and neural network based mechanisms of respiratory control and rhythm generation. Breathing is controlled by multiple brain regions and neuronal subtypes with distinct functional roles. We utilize a combination of electrophysiological, pharmacological, optogenetic, and behavioral approaches in transgenic mice to reveal these distinct functional roles as well as understand how these neurons form complex networks with emergent properties important for the regulation of breathing. Using this multi-level approach, we aim to unravel mechanisms that underlie the highly dynamic, yet robust, nature of breathing under normal conditions, and how these mechanisms can fail or adapt when challenged with e.g. chronic substance abuse, neurodegenerative disease, dysautonomia, and sleep apnea. The Baertsch laboratory is housed in the Seattle Children’s Research Institute Center for Integrative Brain Research, a highly collaborative environment for neuroscience research in a state-of-the-art facility.

The most important aspect of this position is curiosity-driven science. The successful applicant will be expected to design, execute, and analyze experiments related to ongoing projects. Experience with electrophysiological recording, transgenic mouse strategies, and/or computational modeling is preferred, but not required. Initiative to learn new methods and to perform work efficiently and carefully are essential.

Responsibilities:

• Design, perform, and analyze experiments to study respiratory control.
• Present data at group meetings and conferences.
• Contribute to writing of publications, create figures for papers and grants.
• Assist with management of mouse colony.

Minimum Requirements:

• Required PhD in Neuroscience, Physiology, or related field from an accredited university training program
• Experience using basic research techniques of specialty area

Applicants will be asked to include a cover letter upon submitting your job application.

After applying for this position online, You may also send a copy of the cover letter and CV (single PDF document containing a cover letter and CV) and the names and contact information of two references to Nathan Baertsch, PhD. If you have questions about the position or the lab please contact Nathan Baertsch at Nathan.baertsch@seattlechildrens.org

Our community welcomes diverse experiences, backgrounds, and thoughts as this is what drives our spirit of inquiry and allows us to better connect with our increasingly diverse patients and families. Our organization recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

Seattle Children’s is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Workplace and Affirmative Action Employer.