Job Description

Summary

This is a Without Compensation (WOC) Research Biological Lab Technician (Animal) position with the Office of Research and Development (ORD). The VA Research Program strives to promote Veteran-centered care to improve patient experiences and outcomes across VA healthcare and community settings, and to advance value-driven care by providing Veterans the highest quality care at the lowest financial burden.

Learn more about this agency

Duties

Help

This is a Without Compensation (WOC) Research Biological Lab Technician (Animal) position with the Office of Research and Development (ORD) in Kansas City, MO. The incumbent will be responsible for the following:

• Laboratory Duties - Assisting with laboratory studies and data analysis; performing and assisting with laboratory experiments, including cell culture and tissue section staining.
• Animal-Related Duties - performing perfusion fixation of rodents; processing brains for histological examination; genotyping animals, including transgenic animals; and assisting with animal experiments, including gene delivery.
• Molecular Biology Techniques - performing DNA gels and western blots.
• Animal Welfare Oversight - collaborating with Animal Facility staff and the Principal Investigator (PI); and evaluating the health, well-being, and behavior of animals before, during, and after research experiments.

Requirements

Help

Conditions of employment

• U.S. Citizenship; non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• Subject to background/security investigation.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 08/13/2026.

INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT (IOR) - All applicants must meet the IOR with one of the following criteria:

Specialized Experience: Experience must be related to the work of the position being filled. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include:

• Research activity or control program work.
• Nursery work that required the growing and maintenance of plants in a controlled environment.
• Work comparable to that with a large dairy farm where production records, animal environment, and sanitary conditions were kept in accordance with modern dairy practice.

OR

Education: Successful completion of 2 years of study that included at least 12 semester hours in any combination of scientific or technical courses such as biology, chemistry, statistics, entomology, animal husbandry, botany, physics, agriculture, or mathematics. At least 6 semester hours of courses must be directly related to the position being filled.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENT - In addition to the IOR, all applicants must meet one of the below listed Minimum Requirement criteria. All claimed experience and education must be demonstrated on the applicant's resume and corroborated with copies of applicable transcripts.

Experience: six (6) months of general work experience and six (6) months of specialized experience performing the following duties:

• Laboratory Duties - Assisting with laboratory studies and data analysis; performing and assisting with laboratory experiments, including cell culture and tissue section staining.
• Animal-Related Duties - performing perfusion fixation of rodents; processing brains for histological examination; genotyping animals, including transgenic animals; and assisting with animal experiments, including gene delivery.
• Molecular Biology Techniques - performing DNA gels and western blots.
• Animal Welfare Oversight - collaborating with Animal Facility staff and the Principal Investigator (PI); and evaluating the health, well-being, and behavior of animals before, during, and after research experiments.

OR

Education: Successful completion of two (2) years of study with courses related to the work of this position.

OR

Combination : Equal combination of general/specialized experience and education, as described above. Equal combination in this case means six (6) months of general/specialized experience and one (1) year of study with courses related to the work of this position.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: The work is predominantly sedentary. Typically, the employee sits comfortably to do the work. However, there will be some walking, standing, bending and carrying of items of moderate weight such as large binders, banker style file boxes, meeting materials, papers, books or small parts. Hand and eye coordination for delicate testing procedures may be the only special physical demand required to perform the work.

Education

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications (particularly positions with a positive education requirement). Therefore, applicants must report only attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Applicants can verify accreditation here. All claimed education will be verified by the appointing agency accordingly.

If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. See additional information here.

Additional information

• Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process as it pertains to the DVA, please review this document.
• It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment. If you are unable to apply online or require an alternate method to submit application documentation, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this job announcement.
• VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities [i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities], and/or Disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. Contact the Agency Contact listed on this job announcement for information on how to apply under this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator.
• The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced federal and/or VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website here.
• For more information on the "Who may apply" eligibility requirements, please refer to the OHRM Status Candidates and Other Candidate Definitions document.
• During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting-in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.
• Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.
• The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position. This job announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies as needed.

Expand Hide additional information

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

Benefits

Help

Review our benefits

Job Tags

Similar Jobs