The Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital, a University of Toronto affiliated research centre, is one of the world's leading centres in biomedical research. With ground-breaking discoveries in research areas such as diabetes, genetic disorders, cancer and women’s and infants’ health, the Institute is committed to excellence in health research and the training of young investigators. Strong partnerships with the clinical programs of Mount Sinai Hospital ensure that scientific knowledge is used to promote human health. Your significant contributions will assist in maintaining our momentum in advancing our research.

Position Overview PRECISE (Prepare, REact, Collect, Innovate, Share, and Engage Pandemic Platform) is a recently funded multi-institution project that aims to advance pandemic preparedness and biomanufacturing in Canada. PRECISE’s Directors at Sinai Health, Drs. Jennie Johnstone and Anne-Claude Gingras, are working with a team of > 60 researchers across multiple organizations in Canada, along with partners in public health and public/private sectors, to improve diagnostics. PRECISE-LEAP (Prepare, REact, Collect, Innovate, Share, and Engage – Laboratory Engagement for Accelerated Pathogen testing), led by Dr Susan Poutanen, is the diagnostic branch of PRECISE.

We are seeking a Research Technician III to join our diagnostic team. This role will support two primary project streams:

• Verification & Validation (V&V) for infectious disease assay development and implementation.
• Automated Data Analytics focused on analyzing laboratory and pathogen datasets.

The successful candidate will work closely with the project manager, principal investigator, and collaborators across multiple sites to ensure accurate, efficient, and high-quality experimental and analytical outcomes. This position is a one year contract that can be extended.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Prepare biological materials for V&V panels, including clinical samples.
• Perform quality control and stability testing on panels.
• Maintain accurate documentation of sample preparation and storage.
• Follow biosafety protocols for handling pathogens and related materials.
• Coordinate shipment and tracking of panels to PRECISE-LEAP laboratories.
• Evaluate new technologies (including sequencing) and diagnostic assays with industry collaborators and academic partners.
• Organize and manage laboratory and clinical datasets for analysis.
• Coordinate and maintain centralized databases.
• Develop scripts to automate diagnostic assay V&V data importation, exportation, analysis and reporting.
• Support sequencing data analysis and reporting pipeline.
• Develop scripts to generate automated summaries (positivity, trend, and other related metrics), tables, and figures for reports, presentations, and publications.
• Develop scripts in collaboration with Toronto Public Health, Public Health Ontario, and the Ontario Ministry of Health for automatic data analysis and reporting to public health.
• Integrate AI in scripts and workflow for human-data interfacing, automated data extraction, data interpretation and similar applications.

Skills/Qualifications Education and Experience

• B.Sc. in Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Cellular Biology, Biochemistry or related discipline (Master’s degree an asset).
• Minimum of 5 years of laboratory experience (years of related graduate studies are included as laboratory experience), preferably in a diagnostic or research microbiology setting.

Required Skills

• Experience with molecular assay development, validation, or quality control is highly desirable.
• Strong understanding of molecular biology techniques (PCR, qPCR, nucleic acid extraction, sequencing workflows).
• Familiarity with biosafety procedures for handling infectious materials (BSL-2 or higher).
• Familiarity with Transportation of Dangerous Goods requirements is an asset.
• Training and experience in script writing (e.g. R, Python, other), data management and/or Laboratory Information Management Systems (e.g. SCC Soft, EPIC Beaker, Cerner), statistical and bioinformatics tools (e.g., SPSS, STATA), and data visualization software (e.g., ggplot2, matplotlib, PowerBi, Tableau, GraphPad).
• Proficient with Microsoft Office software tools.
• Excellent attention to detail and commitment to data integrity.
• Strong organizational and time management skills to balance wet lab and data tasks.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Excellent oral and written communicator