Head of Cell Culture Media Development

Company context

At Mission Barns, we’re building a cell culture process to ultimately make healthier, tastier, and cheaper animal fat in a more sustainable way without needing to rear and slaughter animals. Over the last 8 years, we’ve set scalable foundations for our first product, our cultivated pork fat, by:

1. Building a novel adherent cell culture bioreactor, poised to be the largest cell-yielding adherent bioreactor in the world by end of year, with potential applications in CGT and broader biopharma
2. Achieving the first regulatory clearance in the world for any cultivated fat product, via FDA and USDA clearance last March
3. Developing a porcine cell culture system with novel, cost-scalable, and food-grade process reagents and porcine adipogenic cell lines that can proliferate enough to meet global pork fat demand

We’re now beginning to optimize our cell culture media formulations, and are looking for a diligent, strategic, and innovative leader to drive the workflow for doing so.

The role

Working hands-on, in partnership with our CTO and as part of our Technical Leadership Team, you will drive workflows that have orders-of-magnitude cost reductions and key quality improvements to our process and cultivated fat cells by defining how to systematically engineer our media formulations. More broadly you’ll help shape the organization through being one of the main architects of our long-term technical strategy, work culture, and overall company operations. You will need to build and/or interface with a diverse combination of deep biotechnological areas including metabolic engineering, cellular and chemical analytics, media component manufacturing and supply chain optimization, sensory science, biological AI/machine learning applications, etc.

This role offers a uniquely large amount of technical ownership and strategic influence. If successful, you’ll be a benefactor to the health of people, animals, and global ecology whilst building state-of-the-art biotechnology.

Objectives

• Modify our media formulations and collaborate with our Cell Line Development function to:
• Maximize the conversion efficiency of nutrients in our media to cultivated fat cell mass in the short-term
• Optimize the adipogenesis efficacy and nutritional/sensory attributes of our fat cells in the long-term
• Reduce cell culture media cost whilst retaining or enhancing key quality attributes of cultivated fat cells by developing a fit-for-purpose supply chain for media components

Responsibilities

• Develop adequate-throughput systems for media optimization workflows using conventional (e.g. DoE) and/or novel (e.g. mRNA-seq, -omic, or ML/AI driven) iterative methodologies
• Grow and manage our Cell Culture Media Development function through hiring and supporting direct reports
• Work closely with our Cell Line Development function to build a systematic understanding of our cell lines including their phenotypes, metabolic profiles, and adipogenesis mechanisms
• Serve as the in-house cell culture media expert resource for our Quality, Supply Chain, and Bioprocess functions
• Foster a curious, diligent, collaborative, and innovative team culture

You may be a good fit if you have these qualifications:

• A demonstrated history of optimizing complex systems with well-defined KPIs and inputs, but poorly-defined intermediate mechanisms
• Experience in managing a high-performing team working on a novel problem
• Identify as a self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment
• Excellent experimental design, troubleshooting and execution skills
• Excellent organizational and communication skills

You’re likely a good fit if you have these qualifications:

• Ph.D/Postdoctoral or industry experience of 5 years in iterative media or bioprocess development, with a track record of successfully developing and optimizing serum-free/animal-component-free cell culture media for animal cell cultures
• Deep knowledge and understanding of cell metabolism mechanisms and how they respond to cell culture media modifications
• Extensive hands-on experience with a wide range of cell culture media related skillsets including media preparation from individual components, cell culture media analytical methods, mRNA-seq, and metabolomics
• Experience in machine-learning-guided media development

Compensation and benefits

We’re open to candidates that are at a relatively wide-range of seniority in their career for this role. We’re more interested in talent with high potential, competence, and agency than a certain number of years of experience. However, direct demonstration of completing applicable or analogous work is highly valued. As a result we have multiple titles and salary bands for this lead, depending on the particular seniority level of a candidate.

Salary

• Principal Scientist/Engineer - $155,000 - $250,000
• Manager - $175,000 - $260,000
• Director - $190,000 - $300,000

Benefits

Significant equity compensation package; medical, dental, and vision coverage, flexible holiday and vacation time policy, dogs on-site, 401k, commuter benefits, all kinds of snacks and drinks, ample opportunity for career advancement, and a few other perks

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Mission Barns is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact recruiting@missionbarns.com.