Scientist III, Strain Development - Decatur, IL

Scientist III, Strain Development - Decatur, IL

ADM Cell Engineering is recruiting an experienced synthetic biologist to join our strain development team. This scientist will design, build and test yeast strains for a high impact project that supports the ADM Bio Solutions sustainable materials strategy. The successful candidate will play a key role in advancing ADM's low-pH platform yeast by combining genome editing, molecular biology, and phenotypic screens to build and test metabolically reprogrammed yeast strains for improved fermentation performance.

This scientist will collaborate with project leaders and subject matter experts in metabolic engineering, automation & high-throughput screening, genomics and fermentation. This is an important role within ADM's Biotechnology Group and scientists with industry experience or experience genetically engineering industrial yeast are encouraged to apply.

• Design and build yeast strains containing heterologous metabolic pathways and/or loss-of-function mutations.
• Deploy state-of-the-art genome editing technologies to efficiently build new yeast strains.
• Design experiments, analyze and interpret data, and report findings on strain performance to link genotype to phenotype.
• Further optimize strain engineering methods to accelerate Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles.
• Analyze and interpret NGS genomic sequencing results (e.g., DNA-seq, RNA-seq).
• Collaborate with automation scientists to transfer manual bench-scale experiments to high-throughput robotic platforms.
• Maintain detailed notes in Benchling ELN/LIMS to enable data sharing and collaboration across project teams.
• Contribute to a team-oriented, positive and safe work environment.

These skills and experiences will be required or useful for the candidate:

• Ph.D. in molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology (or related field) or M.Sc. degree with 5+ years industry experience.
• An understanding of yeast and/or microbial molecular genetics, cell biology and physiology.
• A track record of using 96 well plate methods for molecular cloning and/or biochemical assays.
• Experience interpreting genetic, molecular biology and biochemistry data.
• Ability to use bioinformatics and sequence analysis tools (familiarity with Python or R is desirable).
• Working knowledge of bio-based production and fermentation key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Ability to generate, organize, analyze and interpret large datasets.
• Demonstrated success working within inter-disciplinary team.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills with both technical and non-technical personnel.

Excited about this role but don't think you meet every requirement listed? We encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings.

ADM requires the successful completion of a background check.