Bioprocess Development Specialist

Role Description

Position Overview:Zoetis Veterinary Medicine Research and Development is seeking motivated bioprocess scientists or engineers to join our Upstream Process Development Biopharmaceuticals team and Bacterial Bioprocess Development team. The successful candidates will play essential roles in advancing our portfolio of novel protein therapeutics, monoclonal antibodies, and vaccines designed for veterinary medicine applications. These positions involve hands-on work at the bench to develop mammalian cell culture and bacterial fermentation processes, improve productivity, product quality, robustness, and economics, and support GMP manufacture of biological veterinary products.

Position Responsibilities:

• Represent upstream process development in multiple project teams by being accountable to timelines, clearly communicating research findings, and sharing subject matter expertise.
• Collaborate directly with scientists in multiple adjacent development teams and pilot and manufacturing sites globally.
• Apply theoretical knowledge in the scientific disciplines that support mammalian cell culture, bacterial fermentation, and biopharmaceutical production.
• Design and conduct cell culture and fermentation experiments in shake flasks and bioreactors to identify and validate parameters that affect performance, such as cell growth, product yield, and product quality.
• Apply formal design of experiments and statistical models to systematically improve the parameters that affect cell culture, fermentation, and bioreactor performance.
• Understand and apply principles of scale-up and scale-down to bioreactor systems ranging from micro-scale to bench-scale to large-scale.
• Organize, manage, and interpret large data sets.
• Document experimental findings and maintain electronic laboratory notebooks in accord with scientific protocol and applicable Standard Operating Procedures.
• Author reports to be included in technology transfers and dossiers for product registration.
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement by seeking and studying latest bioprocess technologies and techniques, as well as designing and conducting laboratory experiments to evaluate.
• Perform and support antigen production, purification, and/or concentration processes to support mono- and multivalent vaccine development.
• Provide technical leadership in scale-up programs based on risk assessment of critical parameters and their impact on product quality attributes.
• Perform set-up, operation, and validation of equipment used to generate experimental data. Ensure the maintenance and performance of the equipment is kept in good operational status. Coordinate with internal and external sources to evaluate new technologies or troubleshoot issues with existing equipment.
• Serve as a technical resource to project teams by providing the essential expertise in biological manufacturing science required for successful project delivery. Share experimental findings with team members, peers, and management.

Preferred Technical Skills:

• Demonstrated aseptic cell culture technique for mammalian cell culture.
• Independent upstream process development experience. Demonstrated success in applying knowledge such as molecular biology, cellular metabolism, signal transduction pathways, biochemistry, biotechnology, and biochemical engineering to bioprocess development.
• Theoretical and applied knowledge of the parameters that affect bioreactor design, performance, and scaling. Experience in calculating multiple scaling parameters and computational fluid dynamics.
• Theoretical and applied knowledge of the latest bioprocess technologies, such as in-situ probes, metabolite analyzers, off-gas analyzers. Experience in process automation, process intensification, and continuous production.
• Theoretical and applied knowledge of design of experiment and statistics, as well as experience in wrangling and interpreting large bioprocess data sets.
• Comprehensive hands-on practical experience with systems involving cultivation of wild type micro-organisms, yeasts, or prokaryotes for recombinant protein expression.
• Experience with in-process analytical systems to monitor and control bioreactor experiments such as cell counting, metabolite profiling, and protein quantification.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Education and Experience:

• Possess a relevant degree in science or engineering, such as Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Biotechnology, Chemical/Biochemical Engineering, or Biomedical Engineering.
• BS candidates with a minimum of 6 years relevant experience
• MS candidates with a minimum of 3 years relevant experience
• PhD candidates with any relevant experience

Any unsolicited resumes sent to Zoetis from a third party, such as an Agency recruiter, including unsolicited resumes sent to a Zoetis mailing address, fax machine or email address, directly to Zoetis employees, or to Zoetis resume database will be considered Zoetis property. Zoetis will NOT pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume.

Zoetis will consider any candidate for whom an Agency has submitted an unsolicited resume to have been referred by the Agency free of any charges or fees. This includes any Agency that is an approved/engaged vendor but does not have the appropriate approvals to be engaged on a search.