Postdoctoral Fellow (PREP0004156) Full-time

Postdoctoral Fellow

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Professional Research Experience Program (PREP). NIST recognizes that its research staff may want to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest and, therefore, requires those institutions to be recipients of a PREP award. The PREP program involves staff from a wide range of backgrounds conducting scientific research across various fields. Individuals in this position will perform technical work supporting the collaboration's scientific research.

Research Title: Postdoctoral Researcher in Bioelectronic Sensing

The work will entail:

The Microsystems and Nanotechnology Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD is searching for postdoctoral researchers who are motivated to develop novel electronic measurements of biomarkers. The development of chip scale assays for the accurate and sensitive measurements of biomarkers is critical to enable transformative point of care applications in personalized health care and drug discovery. To enable such applications, we develop bioelectronics measurements to identify and quantify biomarkers in solution. Our research utilizes CMOS device structures specifically designed and fabricated for biosensing. We are interested in developing robust interfaces to semiconductor devices that utilize DNA nanotechnology as well as other approaches to enable the measurements of nucleic acids, proteins, and small molecules in a modular platform.

U.S. Citizens Preferred

Key responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

• Design and assembly of DNA nanostructures.
• Development of techniques and validation methods to verify attachment of DNA nanostructures to semiconductor substrates.
• Setup and development of instrumentation to support CMOS bioelectronic measurements.
• Characterization of biotic-abiotic interfaces and surface chemistry.

Qualifications

• A Ph.D. in Engineering, Materials Science or a related field.
• Two years of relevant experience.
• Expertise with electrochemical (e.g., EIS, cyclic voltammetry) or electrical measurements (e.g., capacitance) measurements of DNA nanostructures or DNA by using CMOS detectors.
• Experience in nanofabrication techniques and processes.
• Data analysis with MATLAB, Mathematica, Python or similar software.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.