Upstream Bioprocess Intern

Location: Gaithersburg, MD

We are currently seeking a current sophomore or junior student, working towards a degree in science or engineering, for a 10–12-week internship during the summer of 2024.

At AstraZeneca, we put patients first and strive to meet their unmet needs worldwide. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and working together to make the impossible a reality. If you are swift to action, confident to lead, willing to collaborate, and curious about what science can do, then you’re our kind of person.

Our Gaithersburg, Maryland facility creates life-changing medicines for people around the world. This campus employs more than 3,500 experts in our field and is only a short drive from Washington, DC. This modern and vibrant scientific campus is the home of R&D and Oncology in the US. Here, we play host to some of the most cutting-edge technology and lab spaces, all designed to inspire collaboration and cross-functional science. We believe employees benefit from being challenged and inspired at work. We are dedicated to creating a culture of inclusion and collaboration.

The Gaithersburg site offers a variety of amenities to help boost productivity and help keep our employees happy and healthy. This includes a fitness center, electric vehicle charging stations, dry cleaning, full-service cafeteria, and copy center. This is where you’ll find newly designed, activity-based workspaces to suit a variety of working styles while increasing collaboration between teams.

Objectives/Goals of the Position:

Gain general experience in a large scale lab and develop a project plan in order to onboard new bioprocessing equipment and prove robustness.

Primary Duties:

This internship will focus on the onboarding and implementation of the Kytero continuous centrifuge into fed-batch mammalian projects at the 500L scale, and 30L and 300L scales for mRNA fermentation projects. Currently, the 500L fed-batch process at the DSC is harvested using a centrifuge with a discharge interval, rather than continuously. This centrifuge allows for faster processing upstream, and potentially better separation for optimized downstream processing. Using our working knowledge alongside the data compiled from the 2023 test runs, we plan to extrapolate upon our findings and use the centrifuge for mRNA projects. This centrifuge will allow for expanded harvest capabilities across modalities.

• The Intern will interact and collaborate with several groups (Upstream/Downstream/ETS/BTE) to gain a foundational understanding of the Upstream processes and use that knowledge/exposure to consolidate and interpret the data collected from previous test runs.
• The Intern will then use the test data and compare findings to a higher density/yield project that is ongoing.
• Once the Intern can demonstrate a basic understanding of the mammalian harvest process and centrifuge testing values, they will build upon that knowledge to coordinate a continuous centrifuge harvest for a MCDC mRNA fermentation process.
• Findings will then be consolidated, once again, and presented to the parties involved.

By the end of the internship, the DSC and Intern will have achieved/developed:

• Basic working knowledge of Upstream bioprocessing from Vial Thaw to Harvest.
• The ability to present findings from the Internship to a group of industry SMEs.
• Implementation of new equipment into a Scale-Up facility with data-driven results.
• Collection, consolidation, and comparison of data from like-pieces of equipment in order to demonstrate its added value.

Why AstraZeneca?

At AstraZeneca when we see an opportunity for change, we seize it and make it happen, because any opportunity no matter how small, can be the start of something big. Delivering life-changing medicines is about being entrepreneurial - finding those moments and recognizing their potential. Join us on our journey of building a new kind of organization to reset expectations of what a bio-pharmaceutical company can be. This means we’re opening new ways to work, pioneering cutting edge methods, and bringing unexpected teams together. Interested? Come and join our journey.

So, what’s next?

Are you already imagining yourself joining our team for the summer? Good, because we can’t wait to hear from you.

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