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The iMEAN startup

Our young startup ambitions to conceive the industrial living organisms of tomorrow to accelerate the transition towards a sustainable world. Establishing a green chemistry is a paramount challenge for the 21^st century.  How do we do that? We create mathematical models of living organisms, like microbes or plants, capable of simulating their behaviour in the wild or in industrial contexts. Our models are based on state-of-the-art scientific knowledge, especially biochemical networks: metabolic and regulatory networks, taking place into the cells. Thanks to a dedicated innovative algorithm, we design the optimal synthetic organism for each industrial challenge. iMEAN aims to be a wold leading company in the digital transformation of biotechnology R&D.

Context

iMEAN provides an innovative service for green chemistry, i.e. industrial biotechnology using microbes. We encounter a growing demand showing high interest from major industrial players. Therefore, we need you to reinforce our team. Our service consists in designing synthetic microorganisms and supporting our customers R&D teams with dedicated systems biology analyses. Our mission:

1. Generate innovative synthetic microbes: Design new chassis, pathways, regulatory loops, etc. thus any smart combination of bio-bricks.
2. Accelerate and secure R&D processes thanks to systems biology: predictions of strains performance & robustness, identification of bottlenecks and troubleshooting.

Position and mission

The open position is a position of metabolic architect, i.e. metabolic engineering design. The position consists in managing and performing projects of metabolic engineering design and providing expert support to the R&D teams of our customers with systems biology analyses. Your mission, if you accept it:

1. Design of synthetic microbes. You will manage and perform synthetic microbes design. You will manage the customers relationship on technical aspects and identify their specific needs (yield, robustness) & constraints (chassis, engineering capacity, etc.). Then, you will design optimal synthetic microbes using our dedicated design platform. You will manage the delivery to the customers.
2. Support of industrial R&D process with systems biology. You will support customers projects in a daily relationship. You will design and setup their modelling platform. You will analyse their data and conduct predictions to identify bottlenecks and propose troubleshooting solutions.
3. Microbial network reconstruction. You will perform metabolic network reconstructions (stochiometric, logical, or dynamic models) to setup modelling platformd for customers or enrich the iMEAN portfolio. You will conduct network validation. You may participate in R&D programs on different microbes.
4. Freedom. Be ready to do crazy things we haven’t thought about yet, and feel free to suggest and spend time to develop cutting-edge technology.

You

Qualification. We think that to succeed in this mission you should possess a solid background in metabolic engineering or/and synthetic biology or/and systems biology, and microbiology. Thus, you should have at least an Engineer diploma or a Master degree. PhD will be considered; in this case you could develop a dedicated R&D project. You should have a strong appetite for bioinformatics. You don’t need a hard background in math, we are looking for biologists with deep understanding of life behaviour from molecular perspective to physiology. Experience in private sector or applied academics would be appreciated. Coding knowledge would be the icing on the cake but is not mandatory.

Soft Skills. Managing high-quality mathematical models requires to be highly rigorous. Your capacity to collaborate within the iMEAN team but also with customers, academics, etc is crucial. You should be service-oriented and enjoy helping others. You are enthusiast to manage ambitious projects, you are perseverant. You are attracted by a startup environment; thus you like “doing” and solving problems in any situation.

Contract conditions

Location: Toulouse (Ramonville)

Type: permanent (CDI)

Salary: starting from 30k€/year (gross salary) depending on experience + up to 3% success bonus by contract + BSPCE (stock options) depending on your added value.

Working time: 39h/week with 6 days RTT 

Advantages: Teleworking possible up to 3 days per week. Large compensation for lunch at INRA campus. Working in Toulouse, one of the best European places to experience a smooth private life & develop a career in biotechnology, we are located in Toulouse White Biotechnology with many biotechnology startups.