Research Scientist - Cambridge

The Life Science Technologies (LST) business unit of Johnson Matthey’s New Market Sector focusses on serving the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and fine chemical markets. Our products include an extensive line of novel palladium coupling catalysts, a major chiral technologies platform combining biocatalysis and asymmetric hydrogenation, and supported heterogenerous precious and base metal catalysts. These products and technologies are developed from concept all the way to production quantities at Johnson Matthey’s various plants in the UK, USA and India. We are currently recruiting for a Research Scientist to join our LST team in Cambridge. The job entails maintaining an uninterrupted supply of biocatalysis enzymes by undertaking upstream bacterial fermentations and downstream processing at both laboratory and pilot-scale. Where appropriate, this requires development work for problem solving and continual improvement of processes. Key responsibilities ▪ Responsible for the operation and maintenance of our microbial production facilities, up to 150L. ▪ Undertake operational process control studies and alignment between scales, performing scale up studies where necessary. ▪ Identifying and problem-solving equipment and process robustness issues, liaising and arranging visits with service and repair engineers for equipment. ▪ Analysing samples by SDS-page and photometric enzyme activity assays. ▪ Supporting technology transfer of in houses processes to external CMO’s. ▪ Responsible for inventory management, the preparation of SOPs, EHS documentation, experiment and batch record write ups and presentation of results in group settings. Are you the ideal candidate? • BSc or PhD (or equivalent experience) in Life Sciences, Biochemical Engineering or a related science discipline. • Knowledge of upstream and downstream processing and unit operations, as well as scaling up and down between bench, pilot and manufacturing. • Knowledge of biocatalysis; recombinant protein expression systems (E. coli, yeast); protein characterisation (gel electrophoresis); and enzyme activity assays (photometric and chromatographic). • Experience in the large-scale production and processing of recombinant enzymes is desirable, preferably in an industrial biotechnology setting. • Proficient data manipulation, visualisation, IT and DoE skills or experience