About City of Hope

City of Hope is an independent research and treatment center for diabetes, cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Bringing together the best in bench-to bedside research, City of Hope’s Arthur Riggs Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute (AR-DMRI) is one of the world’s most comprehensive diabetes research programs.

City of Hope has a long and impressive history of groundbreaking discoveries in the field of diabetes spanning more than five decades since Rachmiel Levine, M.D., who discovered the role of insulin in glucose transport, launched diabetes research at City of Hope in the 1970s. The Institute is named for Arthur D. Riggs, Ph.D., another pioneer in the field famous for his work on synthesizing the first man-made gene and using synthetic genes to produce human insulin, now the standard of care for people with diabetes worldwide. The AR-DMRI is headed by Debbie Thurmond, Ph.D., a renowned research scientist, professor and founding chair of the Department of Molecular & Cellular Endocrinology.

City of Hope is also home to seminal National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) programs, such as the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) and the Integrated Islet Distribution Program (IIDP), that lead the field of diabetes in diabetes research and translational potential.

City of Hope is located in Los Angeles, California, with community clinics throughout Southern California. It recently acquired Cancer Treatment Centers of America, extending its national reach. One of only 53 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the nation, it has been ranked as one of "America's Best Hospitals" in cancer by U.S. News & World Report for over 15 years. Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a pioneer in the fields of immunotherapy and clinical islet cell transplantation for diabetes, bone marrow transplantation and numerous breakthrough cancer drugs, many based on technology developed at the institution.

Position Summary

A Research Associate II opportunity is immediately available for the highly motivated individual in the laboratory of Dr. Alberto Pugliese, MD in the AR-DMRI Department of Diabetes Immunology. The research is highly translational and primarily focused on human type 1 diabetes. The candidate will participate in several projects. For more information on Dr. Pugliese’s research please review his bibliography please visit here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/alberto.pugliese.1/bibliography/public/?sortbypubDate

Under the supervision of Dr. Pugliese, the Research Associate II will perform a variety of research projects that involve:

· Processing and analysis of human blood specimen from living subjects

· Processing of pancreas and other tissue specimens/organs from organ donors (this may require work outside of normal working hours and/weekends)

· Analysis of pancreas and other tissues from organ donors

· Tissue culture/cell culture experiments, and analysis (for example, insulin secretion, T cell activation, etc.)

· Flow cytometry, cell sorting

· Immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence

· Microscopy

· Molecular biology approaches

· Some studies may involve experimental mouse models

Major ongoing projects are investigating miRNA biomarkers, pancreas pathology, and novel therapeutics, also in the context of the analysis of live pancreas tissue from organ donors obtained from the Network for Organ Donors with Diabetes (nPOD), of which Dr. Pugliese is Executive Co-Director, and in future clinical trials. Upcoming studies are projected to include the analysis of samples from patients with type 1 diabetes participating in clinical trials, with trials expected to start in late 2023 and 2024. Additional studies involve analysis of samples from recipients of pancreas-kidney transplant in the context of recurrent type 1 diabetes. Some studies may involve experiments in rodent models of type 1 diabetes.

· For more information on nPOD please visit here: https://npod.org/

· For more information on the Arthur Riggs Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute please visit here: https://www.cityofhope.org/research/riggs-institute/diabetes-milestones-and-history

· For more information on The Wanek Family Project for Type 1 Diabetes please visit here: https://www.cityofhope.org/research/riggs-institute/wanek-project/wanek-family-project-team

Basic education, experience and skills required for consideration:

· Bachelor’s degree. Master’s degree preferred.

· Minimum 2+ years of related research/laboratory experience with a Bachelor’s degree or 1+ year related research/laboratory experience with a Master’s degree.

· Desirable skills, as these are used in the lab, include: flow cytometry, molecular biology techniques, cell culture, microscopy, tissue processing, immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, data analysis (gene expression data, flow cytometry data, etc). While our research is primarily focused on human specimens, animal studies are used on occasion.

Additional Information:

As a condition of employment, City of Hope requires staff to comply with all state and federal vaccination mandates.

· For more information on Dr. Albert Pugliese please visit here: https://www.cityofhope.org/alberto-pugliese