Enzyme Scientist—Rubber Recycling & Biocatalysis

AKIN; Delft; On-site; EUR 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock option plan

Job summary

AKIN, a Dutch biotech company in Delft, seeks a biocatalysis scientist to own enzyme performance at benchtop scale. You will develop assays and run reaction studies on rubber substrates, collaborating with a chemical engineer who leads chemistry and product recovery.

You will also coordinate day-to-day lab operations, produce enzymes in-house at small scale, and work with partner labs to align upstream and downstream development, while supporting the R&D roadmap and grant reporting.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with enzyme activity assays, kinetics and reaction optimisation.
• Experience expressing and purifying recombinant proteins in bacterial and fungal hosts.
• Structured experimental mindset with DoE and careful data handling.

Responsibilities

• Own enzyme performance: develop robust activity assays and run reaction studies on rubber substrates.
• Variant screening: test enzyme variants and provide feedback for the next design round.
• Integrated process development: connect reaction conditions to product profiles with the engineer.
• Partner interface: specify enzyme batches, check incoming lots, and prepare samples for external labs.
• Small-scale enzyme production: maintain cell banks and express/purify variants up to 2.5 L.
• Lab coordination: inventory, ordering, equipment upkeep, ML‑I records, and safety compliance.
• Strategic input: contribute to the R&D roadmap, IP filings and grant reporting.

Skills

Enzyme activity assays

Kinetics

Reaction optimisation

Recombinant protein expression

Shake-flask culture

Benchtop bioreactor culture

SDS-PAGE

Cell banking

DoE (design of experiments)

Lab coordination

English fluency

Dutch language (advantageous)

Education

MSc in biochemistry/biotechnology/life science or related

PhD with up to 3 years industry experience

Tools

Getinge (Applikon) systems

HPLC

UV-Vis spectroscopy

Job description

AKIN, a Dutch biotech company in Delft, seeks a biocatalysis scientist to own enzyme performance at benchtop scale. You will develop assays and run reaction studies on rubber substrates, collaborating with a chemical engineer who leads chemistry and product recovery.

You will also coordinate day-to-day lab operations, produce enzymes in-house at small scale, and work with partner labs to align upstream and downstream development, while supporting the R&D roadmap and grant reporting.