Senior Research Associate, Rodent Neuroscience at Astera

ABOUT THE ROLE The Senior Research Associate will play a central role in building and running our rodent program. You will care for the colony, prepare animals for high-resolution functional imaging, perform the surgeries that make those experiments possible, and process tissue afterward. You will work directly with the scientists whose experiments depend on your work. The ideal candidate is meticulous, independent, and approaches surgical work with the precision and care it demands. You can run a cranial window implantation and achieve consistent, quality results. You keep records that other people can actually use. About Our Animal Research Understanding how the brain works at the level of neural circuits requires carefully designed experiments in animal models. The mouse remains the most powerful system for this work because of its genetic tools, well-characterized neurobiology, and shared circuit architecture with other mammals. We take the responsibility seriously. All of our rodent work is conducted under a veterinarian-supervised program with full IACUC oversight. We are committed to the principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement, and we design studies to use the fewest animals necessary, refine procedures to minimize distress, and share data widely to avoid unnecessary duplication across labs. Animal welfare is inseparable from scientific rigor, and we build our program accordingly. What You Will Do - Oversee a mouse colony, including breeding, weaning, genotyping coordination, and daily welfare monitoring. - Train mice on perceptual and cognitive behavioral tasks. - Perform stereotaxic surgeries under aseptic technique, including animal preparation, anesthesia, intracortical injection of viral vectors and reagents, cranial window implantation, and post-operative care and analgesia. - Maintain chronic preparations and monitor animal health across long experiments, adjusting approaches when conditions drift. - Perform terminal procedures under deep anesthesia, including transcardial perfusion, followed by tissue extraction, sectioning, staining, and basic histology. - Keep detailed records of every animal, surgery, and reagent. - Help shape rodent lab protocols and workflow as the program grows. What We Are Looking For - Three or more years of hands-on experience with laboratory mice in a research setting. - Demonstrated proficiency with rodent surgery, including stereotaxic procedures, aseptic survival surgery, and chronic preparations. - Steady hands and excellent fine-motor control. Cranial windows and intracortical injections require real precision. - Disciplined record keeping and strong organizational habits. Vivarium work runs on schedules. - Strong working knowledge of IACUC protocols and willingness to contribute to protocol drafting and amendments. - Experience handling DEA-scheduled anesthetics and analgesics under proper oversight. - Independence and proactive judgment. You can run the rodent side of a study without constant supervision. - A sincere commitment to animal welfare, and the judgment to carry out every aspect of the work, including end-of-study procedures, with care and composure. - Bonus: prior experience with cranial windows for two-photon imaging, AAV injections, GRIN lens or miniscope implants, or behavioral training for head-fixed paradigms. Education BS or MS in neuroscience, biology, animal science, veterinary technology, or a related field is preferred. Equivalent demonstrated experience will also be considered. About Astera Neuro Astera Neuro is a neuroscience research company building the tools and infrastructure required to understand how the brain works at scale. We develop cutting-edge hardware and recording systems, with the goal of enabling the next generation of discoveries about neural circuits, cognition, and behavior.