Senior Scientist-Systems Biology

Job:  Senior Scientist – Systems Biology 

Department:  Innovation & Technology

Location Renewable Chemicals Innovation Center, Lexington, MA

Travel Involved: ~ 20%

Job Type: Full time

Description:

Braskem America is seeking an exceptional, highly motivated Systems Biologist to work on cutting edge technology in the renewable chemicals space. The successful candidate will use state-of-the-art approaches to make metabolic pathway predictions that inform strain engineering projects, and they will collaborate with wet lab teams to test these predictions.  The successful candidate will drive research on the discovery/design and testing of biochemical pathways in the context of milestone-driven, proof-of-concept projects. Strong computational, technical, organizational, and communication skills, as well as the ability to develop creative solutions to challenging problems, are essential.

The ideal candidate will develop in silico models for rational metabolic engineering and apply interdisciplinary technologies to address the complex challenge of metabolic engineering. The candidate will be responsible for leading and/or supporting multiple pathway design research projects to discover and develop novel biochemical pathways for the production of renewable chemicals and materials. They will develop a systems biology platform to integrate quantitative metabolomics and fluxomics data into computational models that will be able to predict targets for optimizing metabolic yields for microbial fermentations at multiple scales, from flasks to bioreactors.

Key Responsibilities Include:

• Metabolic modeling: Apply flux-balance analysis to metabolic engineering projects. Develop pipelines to facilitate the use of next-generation models in a fast-paced metabolic engineering environment.
• Biological data processing: Engineer data flows to ensure that model predictions can be compared to experimental data. Decipher biological data complexity to highlight key features that will help teams reach milestones quicker.
• Developing quantitative models for interpretation of biological data and applying the learnings to generate hypotheses and testable predictions.
• Experience with at least one type of genome-scale metabolic modeling software environment (e.g., COBRA, RAVEN).
• Communication of data and projects both within the team and to senior leadership as well as to external stakeholders.

Requirements:

• Ph.D. in Systems Biology, Metabolic Engineering, Bioinformatics, Chemical or Biological Engineering, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology or related.
• 5 to 10 years of post-doctoral industrial experience.
• Strong background in microbial physiology, metabolic engineering, pathway discovery, and biochemistry

Must be highly motivated with exceptional communication, leadership, and teamwork skills.

Preferred Skills, Education, and Experience:

• Experience with computer programming languages (Python, C++, Matlab).
• Experience with machine learning for data analysis.
• Wet lab experience, particularly that related to Metabolic Flux Analysis via isotopic labeling.