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Fermentation Associate Scientist/Technician

Solugen

Fermentation Associate Scientist/Technician

Houston, TX
Full Time
Paid
  • Responsibilities

    SOLUGEN

    14549 MINETTA ST.

    HOUSTON TX 77035

    POSITION:

    Fermentation Process Development Engineer/Senior Associate Scientist

    ABOUT SOLUGEN:

    Solugen, Inc. is commercializing an enzymatic process to co-manufacture hydrogen peroxide and organic acids from biobased feedstocks. Solugen was founded in 2016 and is a post-Series A venture-backed startup company located in Houston, Texas. Solugen is scaling up its manufacturing process on five acres of manufacturing space with a 65,000 square foot facility containing 10,000 square feet of office and lab space. Solugen currently has 50+ full time employees.

    SUMMARY:

    The Fermentation Process Development Scientist is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the fermentation process development lab, especially the execution of fermentation experiments. This involves assisting in experimental design, equipment and media setup, fermentor inoculation, operation, and sampling, sample analysis, clean-up, and analysis of experimental results. The engineer/scientist will troubleshoot process and equipment issues, and aid in the scale up of these processes to the pilot and industrial scales. The engineer/scientist will report initially to the Director of Process Development.

    MISSION:

    The mission of the Fermentation Process Development Scientist is to assist in the development and scale up of new fermentation processes.

    Development: The scientist will review literature, design new experiments, execute experiments, and analyze results. Execution is a major part of this role, including media preparation, bioreactor operation, and aseptic operations (inoculations, sampling, etc.), biochemical analysis, and clean up. Maintaining a clean, orderly, well-stocked, and safe lab is part of this execution. This will require occasional night and weekends work, as experiments require.

    Scale up: The scientist will develop fermentation KPIs for pilot and industrial fermentation and will aid in the scale up and tech transfer of developed processes. This will include equipment operation, training others on fermentation processes, sample collection and validation, and process troubleshooting. This may involve occasional travel.

    OUTCOMES:

    · Installation and successful commissioning of new laboratory fermentation equipment within 3 of on boarding

    · Demonstration of a scalable fermentation process in 5 L fermentors within 6 months of on boarding

    · Development of a reliable, reproducible inoculation process for 5 L fermentation with filamentous fungi within 6 months of on boarding

    · Prepare media, seed cultures, and reagents to support experiments

    · Development fermentation analytical techniques for nutrient depletion, cell growth, and product titer, and then execute for experimental fermentation on an ongoing basis

    · Execution of experiments to support fermentation process development, such as media development, feed rates, agitation rates, temperatures, etc.

    · Troubleshoot equipment and perform maintenance and cleaning as needed. Perform or organize repairs rapidly when needed

    · Order new reagents as needed

    · Train employees to execute laboratory tasks related to fermentation engineering and supporting activities

    · Assist with “hand-off” to downstream processing, and assist in DSP PD as needed

    · Maintain a clean, safe laboratory environment

    COMPETENCIES:

    • Extremely comfortable with aseptic technique: i.e. aseptic sampling, seed culture preparation
    • Experience with aseptic bioreactor operation is a must
    • Experience with bioreactor maintenance
    • Experience with media prep
    • History of working with filamentous fungi is highly desired.
    • Working knowledge of fermentation assays: packed cell volume, dry cell weight, cell number, chemoenzymatic metabolite measurements, HPLC, UV, etc
    • Familiarity with downstream processing (centrifugation, tangential flow filtration, chromatography, etc.) is a plus
    • Good familiarity with Office products as well as a general level of comfort with online communication and work management platforms such as Dropbox, Google Doc, and Slack.
    • Close attention to detail, ability to be precise in experiments and reporting
    • Ability to work some evenings and weekends, as experiments dictate

    QUALIFICATIONS:

    BS in Chemical Engineering, Biochemical Engineering, Bio engineering, Biotechnology, Biology, Microbiology or similar degree with 5+ years' experience in industrial fermentation/bioreactor operation/fermentation engineering OR 10+ years' experience in industrial fermentation/bioreactor operation/fermentation engineering