Scientist Glycoconjugation Technology

Location: Netherlands

SIRE® is the market leader in Life Sciences recruitment. We believe the recruitment market needs to gear up in technology and continuous innovation. We like technology, in a Life Sciences market driven on science, we couldn’t stay behind; we drive Recruitment Science. Investing a majority of our turnover in technology enables us to use unique Resource Technologies. By using highly advanced algorithms, we enable our team of Resource & Data Strategists© to maintain the most advanced, detailed and complete Life Sciences network in Europe. This big data enables us to work Reverse Recruitment©: we first analyze the market in-depth before we go out to the market. Because we analyze the whole market, we can compare facts and data. This enables us to do Facts & Big Data Recruitment©, making sure we, or better yet, you find the right career!Our client is a professional Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology organisation, based in Zuid-Holland Netherlands.

The Company

The company is one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.

Role Description

The vaccines department is working on the discovery and early development of novel vaccines for bacterial infectious diseases. It strives to address unmet medical needs, such as bacteremia (sepsis), meningitis, and respiratory tract and nosocomial infections. Projects at the vaccines department are primarily structured on scientific and technical collaboration with external biotechnology partners (governmental and industrial) that are innovative leaders in their field. This working process includes 'state of the art' vaccine discovery, with subsequent in vivo evaluation of these vaccine candidates in animal models for immunogenicity and/or efficacy. In addition, manufacturing processes are optimized and established, and the resulting clinical trial material is evaluated in human clinical studies.

The department responsible for Bacterial Vaccines development is recruiting a qualified Scientist/project engineer in Glycoconjugate purification and analysis for a major vaccine project. In the course of your work, you will interact with various bacterial vaccines teams, and with various support departments. You will be expected to perform hands-on laboratory work full-time.

The department is strengthening its biochemical development and analysis capabilities, which are centered mainly on the production and analysis of carbohydrate-protein conjugates and peptide-protein conjugates. Previous experience in an industrial setting would strongly benefit the vaccines projects.

Responsibilities

- Supervising production and evaluation of carbohydrate-protein conjugates.
- Act as an expert on characterization of glycoproteins
- Devise in-process controls to monitor the glycoconjugation process
- Support development of new conjugation methods
- Data acquisition and evaluation
- Fairly independent work without day-to-day supervision
- Managing a small team of junior/associate scientists
- Reviewing the progress of work at a contract research partner (CRO/CMO)
- Manage/supervise downstream processing of glycoconjugates (together with the BacVac Bioprocess team)

Requirements

Work experience:
- PhD/advanced engineering degree or equivalent, in a relevant discipline such as bioorganic chemistry, bioanalytical technologies, pharmaceutical technology, biochemistry, biochemical engineering or related fields.
- Preferably two years of professional experience (biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry is a plus).
- A strong background on downstream processing of glycoconjugate proteins is a must.
- Previous experience working with carbohydrates, proteins, and glycoproteins is a must.
- Previous experience working with bioconjugation reactions (e.g. labelling, chemical modifications), and (bio)chemical analysis (e.g. HPLC) is highly valuable.
- Hands-on experience on advanced glycoprotein characterization methods is highly valuable.
- Previous experience in drafting technical process descriptions, process SOPs and biochemical process flow diagrams is highly desirable.

Competencies:
- Communicates clearly.
- Very strong documentation skills demonstrated by publications
- Team player, flexible, motivated.
- Planning, organizing and executing work accurately and efficiently.
- Language skills: fluent English. Dutch considered a plus

Are you interested and do want to apply for this role, please fill out your application via the apply button below and contact Alexander Wielemaker.