Company Description
As a global key player in yeasts and fermentation, Lesaffre designs, manufactures and markets innovative solutions for Baking, Food taste & pleasure, Health care and Biotechnology.
Family group born in northern France in 1853, now a multi-national and a multicultural company, Lesaffre is committed to working with confidence to better nourish and protect the planet.
In close collaboration with its clients and partners, Lesaffre employs 11 000 people in more than 50 countries.
Lesaffre achieves a turnover of 3 billion euros.
Job Description
As a member of the Microbial Engineering team within the Bioengineering Center of Excellence (Lesaffre Institute for Science and Technology) in France, you will work at the laboratory bench supporting the Lesaffre’s group classical breeding programs for improvement of fungi, yeast and bacteria, with classical breeding including, for instance, mutagenesis, cell fusion, hybridization/mating/crossing, marker-assisted selection.
Main initial assignments will focus on classic yeast genetics, with fungal and bacterial classic breeding as secondary assignments, but still mission-critical responsibilities in the long term.
Your main missions will be :
- Understand, support the development, execute laboratory strategies to study, create microbial genetic diversity by a combination of classic approaches (tetrads dissection, FACS, ALE, plate selection, benchtop phenotyping, genomic typing), high-throughput system biology (phenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) methods, statistics, automated breeding technology of yeast and bacteria within a Biofoundry laboratory environment.
- Take laboratory benchtop role in the development and execution of genotypes selection and strain improvement programs for optimal selection of parents, segregants, progeny and hybrids for applications in breadmaking, brewing, winemaking, fuel ethanol, distillers, cell extracts, nutraceuticals.
- Being able to independently search and understand academic literature, troubleshoot technically complex problems, and propose solutions or experimental plans.
- Maintain high-quality documentation of your work and discoveries, in the forms of written reports, technical presentations, electronic lab notebooks, internal database records, and software documentation.
The Microbial Breeding Research Associate will report to the Head of Microbial Engineering, Bioengineering Center of Excellence, Lesaffre Institute for Science and Technology (LIST). The position requires high level of flexibility and combination between laboratory and desk activities, with strong emphasis on the former, working together and collaboration with technicians and scientists of a multi-purpose team, performing experiments directly, and planning, analysis, and preparing reports/presentations for communication of results and progress.
Qualifications
- MSc in biology, life sciences, genetics, bioengineering or affiliated biological sciences, with experience in industrial microbiology, in specific yeast breeding.
- Technical experience in two of the following areas: yeast mating and hybridization using automated pipelines, mutagenesis, genomic breeding.
- Facility with and desire to be trained on programming in R or Python and their application to data analysis and statistics. Experience with best practices for collaborative software development (version control systems, test-driven development, good documentation habits) are desired.
- Demonstrated organizational ability to meet the demands of multiple concurrent projects.
- Ability to collaborate efficiently with multiple internal and external stakeholders, often using innovative approaches in lean management, continuous improvement, Agile philosophy.
- Strong curiosity, drive, motivation, and comfort with working in areas of biology previously unknown to you and, at times, your peers.
Additional Information
What can Lesaffre offer you:
- Join a family business rich in a long history with human-oriented values with a mission: To Nourish and Protect our Planet,
- Evolve in an enriching work environment and a multicultural context
At Lesaffre, diversity is a strength that enriches our culture and our teams. We are committed to offering you a work environment where you can thrive, regardless of your background, gender, age or abilities. We encourage all applications, as we believe that diverse perspectives strengthen our ability to innovate and meet the challenges of tomorrow.
