Head of Cell Culture Media Development

Mission Barns•San Francisco, CA

28d•$155,000 - $300,000

About The Position

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: 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 Achieving the first regulatory clearance in the world for any cultivated fat product, via FDA and USDA clearance last March 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.

Requirements

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

Nice To Haves

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

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