Organic Chemist / Scientist

Job Description

Job Description

Position: Organic Chemist / Scientist
Location:      Rockford IL 61101
Duration:  18 Months 
Job Type:   Temporary Assignment 
Work Type: Onsite

Summary

The Organic Chemist/Scientist will support the Fatty Acid project by developing, optimizing, scaling, and documenting synthetic and purification processes for fatty acids, lipids, and related raw materials used in cell-culture media production. The role requires strong expertise in multi-step organic synthesis, lipid chemistry, purification, analytical characterization, process development, and scale-up. The scientist will develop robust and reproducible processes that meet raw-material specifications and support successful transfer to manufacturing while collaborating with R&D, Analytical, Operations, Quality, Procurement, and project-management teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, plan, and independently execute laboratory experiments for the synthesis and process development of fatty acids, glycerides, phospholipids, and related lipid molecules.
• Develop and optimize synthetic routes with focus on yield, purity, reproducibility, scalability, and raw-material availability.
• Develop and optimize purification strategies using normal-phase and reverse-phase chromatography, preparative HPLC, flash chromatography, crystallization, extraction, precipitation, and related techniques.
• Characterize starting materials, intermediates, impurities, and final products using HPLC, LC-MS/MS, MS, NMR, FT-IR, UV/VIS, ELSD/CAD, and other analytical techniques.
• Investigate impurity profiles and troubleshoot synthesis, purification, stability, and recovery issues.
• Perform feasibility studies using lower-purity or alternate-source starting materials and establish process conditions to achieve required product quality.
• Support scale-up from laboratory development to gram and hundreds-of-gram quantities.
• Develop processes suitable for transfer to manufacturing operations.
• Partner with Analytical Development to establish or refine purity and identity methods.
• Support preparation of materials for internal evaluation, packaging, formulation, process validation, and manufacturing transfer.
• Prepare experimental protocols, development reports, batch/process instructions, technical summaries, and validation documentation.
• Maintain complete and accurate laboratory records, including experimental conditions, calculations, raw data, observations, deviations, and conclusions.
• Collaborate with R&D, Analytical, Operations, Quality, Procurement/Sourcing, and project-management teams.
• Communicate technical results, risks, recommendations, and project status to stakeholders.
• Follow departmental quality systems, chemical hygiene requirements, EHS standards, and safe laboratory practices.

Required Skills 

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Chemical Sciences, or a closely related discipline.
• Bachelor’s degree with substantial directly relevant industrial synthetic chemistry experience may also be considered.
• Strong hands-on experience in organic synthesis, reaction optimization, and multi-step synthesis.
• Demonstrated experience purifying complex organic molecules using chromatography and other preparative purification techniques.
• Hands-on experience interpreting HPLC, LC-MS/MS or MS, NMR, and FT-IR data.
• Ability to use analytical data for reaction monitoring, identity confirmation, purity assessment, and impurity troubleshooting.
• Strong reaction troubleshooting and experimental design skills.
• Ability to independently identify and resolve synthesis and purification problems.
• Experience documenting experimental work for process development, technology transfer, and regulated or quality-controlled environments.
• Ability to work independently and effectively within cross-functional project teams.
• Excellent written, verbal, technical communication, and data-presentation skills.
• Experience with lipid chemistry, fatty-acid chemistry, glycerides, phospholipids, surfactants, or detergent-like molecules is preferred.
• Experience with phosphatidylcholines, diacylglycerols, or related lipid molecules is preferred.
• Experience with Biotage Isolera/Selekt or comparable flash/preparative chromatography systems is preferred.
• Experience with CAD or ELSD detection for lipid and non-chromophoric compound analysis is preferred.
• Experience scaling synthetic processes from small-scale experiments to gram or hundreds-of-gram quantities is preferred.
• Experience with process validation, change control, raw-material development, or R&D-to-manufacturing technology transfer is preferred.
• Knowledge of raw-material specifications, supplier qualification, and evaluation of alternate-source materials is preferred.