Research Technician II

Company Description

UHN is Canada’s #1 hospital and the world’s #1 publicly funded hospital. With 10 sites and more than 44,000 TeamUHN members, UHN consists of Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, The Michener Institute of Education and West Park Healthcare Centre. As Canada's top research hospital, the scope of biomedical research and complexity of cases at UHN have made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. UHN has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in neurosciences, cardiology, transplantation, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. UHN is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto.

UHN’s vision is to build A Healthier World and it’s only because of the talented and dedicated people who work here that we are continually bringing that vision closer to reality.

www.uhn.ca

Job Description

Union: Non-Union
Number of vacancies: 1
New or Replacement Position: New 
Site: Allan Slaight Medical Innovation Labs (ASMIL)
Department: Research
Reports to: Senior Scientist
Salary Range: $31.72 - $39.65 per hour
Hours: 37.5 hours per week
Shifts: Day 
Status: Temporary Full-time (1 year contract)
Closing Date: November 13, 2026

Position Summary

The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre is seeking a dedicated and highly organized Research Technician to join the Chan Lab, a multi-disciplinary team studying acute myeloid leukemia (AML), leukemic stem cells, clonal hematopoiesis and mitochondrial biology. Our work combines primary patient samples, functional genomics, and patient-derived xenograft models to identify and validate new therapeutic targets in myeloid malignancies.

This is a dual role. The successful candidate will serve as the lab's in vivo mouse specialist, managing our mouse colony and performing the transplantation, treatment and tissue-harvest work. They will also act as the lab's operational anchor, overseeing ordering, inventory, equipment maintenance and safety compliance so that trainees and staff can work efficiently.

Given these responsibilities, the successful candidate must be comfortable handling mice and performing injections, dissections and survival procedures, and ideally will have 2+ years of hands-on rodent experience in a research setting. Strong tissue culture and flow cytometry skills are equally essential. This position is fully on-site with minimal remote component.

Duties

• Mouse colony management and in vivo work
  • Manage the lab's immunodeficient and transgenic mouse colony, including breeding, weaning, genotyping, cage census and record keeping against approved animal use protocol limits.
  • Perform intravenous injections of leukemia cells.
  • Perform intrafemoral injections and femoral bone marrow aspirations for serial sampling of engrafted mice.
  • Administer treatments by oral gavage and intraperitoneal injection, monitor animal health and apply humane endpoints.
  • Track engraftment and disease burden by serial peripheral blood sampling and flow cytometry.
  • Euthanize and dissect mice, harvesting bone marrow, spleen, liver and blood for downstream analysis.
  • Prepare, maintain and renew animal use protocols and amendments, and keep training and compliance records current.
  • Liaise with the animal facility on cage ordering, billing, health surveillance and importation of new strains.
  • Train and supervise other lab members in approved animal procedures.
• Cell culture and wet lab experiments
  • Maintain AML cell lines and primary patient-derived leukemia cells, including thawing, cryopreservation, mycoplasma testing and cell line authentication.
  • Process primary patient and mouse samples by density gradient separation, red cell lysis and magnetic or antibody-based enrichment.
  • Design, stain and run multi-colour flow cytometry panels, analyze data in FlowJo, and prepare samples for cell sorting.
  • Support routine molecular work such as nucleic acid extraction, PCR and qPCR, cloning, lentiviral production and transduction, and immunoblotting.
  • Maintain accurate, auditable records in the electronic lab notebook and organize raw data for analysis and publication.
  • Assist graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting trainees with in vivo and in vitro experiments.
• Lab organization and operations
  • Act as the primary contact for purchasing, receiving and reconciling orders of reagents, consumables and equipment, working with the business officer and against multiple grant accounts.
  • Maintain inventories of reagents, antibodies, plasmids, cell lines and frozen stocks, and monitor liquid nitrogen and freezer status.
  • Coordinate equipment maintenance, service contracts, calibration and repairs, and manage shared instrument booking.
  • Serve as the lab safety representative, covering containment level 2 biosafety, WHMIS, chemical and biohazard waste, spill response and safety training.
  • Onboard and train new students and staff on lab procedures, and write and update standard operating procedures.
  • Coordinate incoming and outgoing shipments, including dry ice shipments and material transfer agreement paperwork.

Qualifications

• At minimum, a Bachelor's degree in biology, biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, physiology or a related discipline required.
  • PhD is preferred.
• At least three (3) years of hands-on laboratory research experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience required. 
  • At least two (2) years of mammalian cell culture experience with strong aseptic technique, including maintenance of suspension and adherent lines an asset
• Demonstrated mouse handling experience, including restraint and identification, intravenous (tail vein) injection, intraperitoneal injection, oral gavage, and dissection with harvest of bone marrow, spleen and blood.
• Experience with breeding colony management, including setting up matings, weaning, genotyping and maintaining accurate colony records.
• Completion of, or eligibility to complete, institutional animal care and use training within the first three months of hire.
• Hands-on flow cytometry experience, including multi-colour panel staining, compensation, instrument operation and analysis in FlowJo or equivalent software.
• Strong knowledge of standard molecular biology techniques such as ddPCR and qPCR set-up, nucleic acid extraction.
• Demonstrated experience with laboratory organization, inventory control and purchasing.
• Meticulous record keeping and comfort working with an electronic lab notebook.
• Intrafemoral injection and femoral bone marrow aspiration in mice an asset
• Retro-orbital injection and bleeding, and survival surgery experience an asset 
• Experience with immunodeficient strains such as NSG, NSG-SGM3, NRG or NBSGW, and with xenotransplantation of primary human cells an asset
• Experience with limiting dilution transplantation assays and secondary transplantation an asset
• Experience handling primary human blood and bone marrow samples under a research ethics protocol an asset 
• Experience with fluorescence-activated cell sorting on a sorter such as the FACSAria or equivalent, including sorting of rare populations an asset 
• Experience with colony-forming unit assays, cytospins or basic hematologic morphology an asset
• Experience with lentiviral or retroviral work and CRISPR-based gene editing in human cells an asset
• Experience with in vivo imaging (bioluminescence) and with small animal drug treatment studies an asset 
• Familiarity with mitochondrial or metabolic assays such as Seahorse extracellular flux analysis an asset 
• Experience preparing animal use protocol submissions, biosafety permits or ethics amendments an asset 
• Prior experience in a hematology, oncology or stem cell laboratory an asset 
• Excellent organizational and time management skills, with the ability to run several studies and a busy colony in parallel.
• Ability to work independently, accurately and to deadline, with sound judgment about when to escalate.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills in a team environment, including with trainees at all levels.
• A willingness to learn new techniques and technologies, and to take ownership of lab-wide responsibilities.
• Comfort working with live animals, human biological samples, cytotoxic drugs and radioisotopes under appropriate safety controls.
• Flexibility to accommodate occasional weekend or evening animal monitoring and time-sensitive experiments.
• This position is fully on-site at the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Tower in downtown Toronto.

Additional Information

Why join UHN?
In addition to working alongside some of the most talented and inspiring healthcare professionals in the world, UHN offers a wide range of benefits, programs and perks. It is the comprehensiveness of these offerings that makes it a differentiating factor, allowing you to find value where it matters most to you, now and throughout your career at UHN. 

• Competitive offer packages  
• Government organization and a member of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP https://hoopp.com/) 
• Close access to Transit and UHN shuttle service 
• A flexible work environment  
• Opportunities for development and promotions within a large organization 
• Additional perks (multiple corporate discounts including: travel, restaurants, parking, phone plans, auto insurance discounts, on-site gyms, etc.) 

Current UHN employees must have successfully completed their probationary period, have a good employee record along with satisfactory attendance in accordance with UHN's attendance management program, to be eligible for consideration.

All applications must be submitted before the posting close date.

UHN uses email to communicate with selected candidates. Please ensure you check your email regularly. At University Health Network (UHN), artificial intelligence technologies may be used to assist in the screening, assessment, and selection of candidates for this position.

Please be advised that a Criminal Record Check may be required of the successful candidate. Should it be determined that any information provided by a candidate be misleading, inaccurate or incorrect, UHN reserves the right to discontinue with the consideration of their application.

UHN is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive recruitment process and workplace. Requests for accommodation can be made at any stage of the recruitment process. Applicants need to make their requirements known.

We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected for further consideration will be contacted.