Bioprocess Specialist Hoxton Farms Cultivating a deliciously fatty future.

AgFunder; Greater London; On-site; GBP 38,000; Full time

Job summary

A cutting-edge biotech firm in London seeks a Bioprocess Specialist to enhance operations in mammalian tissue culture systems. The successful candidate will conduct R&D, pilot scale bioreactor operations, and contribute to innovative manufacturing processes. Candidates should have a Master’s in a relevant field and at least one year of experience with bioreactors. The role offers a highly competitive salary of £38k, stock options, and a range of benefits including private health insurance and generous holiday allowance.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Stock option plan

Private health insurance

25 days holiday plus bank holidays

Qualifications

• Minimum 1 year experience with microbial or mammalian bioreactors.
• Experience with bench scale and pilot scale bioreactor formats.
• Strong analytical skills: sampling and interpreting process data.

Responsibilities

• Conduct R&D and pilot scale bioreactor operations.
• Scale up and maintain seed trains for bioreactors.
• Execute SOPs and maintain documentation compliance.

Skills

Aseptic technique

Troubleshooting skills

Attention to detail

Process oriented mindset

Communication skills

Education

Master’s degree in biotechnology or related field

Tools

Bioreactors

Electronic Laboratory Notebooks

Job description

We’re looking for a Bioprocess Specialist to join our awesome team.

Location: proudly onsite, in person, in Old Street, London

You will join our Production team in London, operating mammalian tissue culture systems to support the production of cultivated fat. You will implement novel protocols and technologies to drive our progress towards large scale manufacturing, working alongside brilliant engineers, biologists, and mathematicians.

As a Bioprocess Specialist, you will conduct R&D and pilot scale bioreactor operations, supporting scale-up and process validation. Your diligence, talent for collaboration, and reliability will make you an essential member of our team.

What you’ll do

• Use your aseptic technique and organisational skills to scale up and maintain seed trains for inoculation of bioreactors.
• Conduct routine media preparation to support bioprocess development and production work.
• Operate, monitor, and maintain our in-house built pilot-scale bioreactors, including set up, inoculation, sampling, harvest, CIP/SIP, cleaning, and shutdown procedures.
• Execute standard operating procedures (SOPs), batch records, and other documentation, ensuring full compliance with quality and safety standards.
• Improve efficiency of the production operation, to successfully demonstrate yields achieved in R&D at production scale.
• Troubleshoot process and equipment issues in real time, including sensor faults, flow disruptions, in-process monitoring deviations, and contamination events.
• Support root cause analysis and implement corrective actions to maintain bioreactor performance and product quality.
• Support scale up efforts by assisting in the transfer of pilot-scale protocols and lessons learned into the next scale bioreactor design and validation.

What we’re looking for

• You’re comfortable working in fast changing and dynamic environments, without losing attention to safety or data integrity.
• You have strong hands on aseptic technique and discipline, including cell culture, sampling and transfers, with an instinct for contamination prevention.
• You have a process oriented mindset, noticing trends, flagging issues early and strong follow-through.
• You have worked with real processes and developed troubleshooting skills. Examples include unexpected cell behaviours, equipment alarms and run to run variability.
• You’re comfortable with repetitive operations and fluctuations of production intensity.
• You have clear and honest communication style with excellent documentation skills.
• You’re team oriented, willing to be trained and train other members of the team and to share knowledge in general.

Why Join us

You’ll play a critical role at heart of scale up and production of a new cutting edge manufacturing platform. As our Bioprocess Specialist, you’ll combine deep bioreactor work with innovative cell biology to meet ambitious scale up goals in a nascent industry. Working closely with our expert bioprocess scale up, production, hardware and software teams, you’ll be a part of the implementation of a novel bioreactor platform for food and biotech.

The role is suited to someone that wants to learn fast, take ownership and grow into a senior operator. Your contributions will have an immediate, company wide impact and are key to scaling our business.

Required skills and experience

• Master’s degree (or equivalent experience) in biotechnology, biochemical engineering, bioprocess engineering, or related life sciences / engineering field.
• Minimum 1 year experience working with microbial or mammalian bioreactors in pilot / lab / manufacturing environment.
• Provable experience with bench scale and pilot scale bioreactor formats.
• Large scale media preparation.
• Excellent aseptic technique in biosafety cabinets.
• Strong attention to detail and analytical skills: sampling, performing assays, interpreting process data.
• Ability to follow SOPs, GMP / GLP documentation practices, batch record and deviation reporting.
• Exposure to Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs) software.

Benefits

• 💰 Highly competitive salary (£38k)
• 📈 Stock option plan
• 🏛️ Beautiful lab and office in Old Street
• 🥳 Weekly socials and events
• 🏡 Pension plan (matching up to 5% and salary sacrifice)
• ❤️🩹 Private health insurance
• 🏖️ 25 days’ holiday + bank holidays

About Hoxton Farms

Hoxton Farms is a series B startup using modular, AI enabled manufacturing to make high value products from stem cells for food and pharma. Their first product is animal fat, a premium B2B ingredient that boosts supply resilience and nutrition for meat companies. Cofounded in 2020 by Max Jamilly and Ed Steele, Hoxton Farms are a team of 50 based in London with customers worldwide, backed by some of the world’s best investors including Founders Fund, F-Prime/FSV and GlobalBrain.

Hoxton Farms is an equal opportunity employer committed to providing a working environment that embraces inclusion, diversity and belonging.

If you believe you would add value to our company but don’t meet all the criteria, we would still love to hear from you. We especially encourage applications from female+, LGBTQIA+, disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates, as these groups are underrepresented in the tech industry.