Postdoc: AI-Driven Upstream Cell Culture & Process Modeling

100 Eli Lilly and Company; Indianapolis (IN); On-site; USD 74,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Vacation benefits

Medical benefits

Life insurance

Job summary

Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow to advance mammalian cell culture modeling for early- and late-stage clinical development. You will build mechanistic and data-driven models and apply ML to guide feeding strategies and process optimization.

The role emphasizes model-guided design, real-time monitoring and cross-functional collaboration within BR&D, offering a two-year term with potential extension and opportunities for full-time positions.

Qualifications

• PhD in Chemical/Biochemical Engineering, Bioengineering, Systems Biology, Computational Biology, Metabolic Engineering, or related field.
• Experience with constraint-based or genome-scale metabolic modeling.
• Hands-on experience designing and executing cell culture experiments with Batch, Fed-batch, and Intensified Processes.

Responsibilities

• Develop and calibrate mechanistic and hybrid metabolic models of mammalian cell culture processes, integrating process data to predict cellular behavior and identify performance-limiting factors.
• Build computational pipelines that turn routine bioprocess data into model inputs and generate predicted metabolic flux distributions across the culture cycle.
• Apply machine learning and data-driven methods for performance prediction and to integrate model-derived features with experimental data.
• Use calibrated models to evaluate feeding strategies and medium compositions to enhance productivity.
• Design and execute cell culture experiments—from shake flask to bench-scale bioreactors—to generate datasets for model development, training, and validation.
• Collaborate with the Analytical team to develop multi-omics methods for metabolic model calibration.
• Integrate model-derived features into machine learning workflows to support earlier decisions, including predictive clone selection from earlier-stage process data.
• Investigate AI-assisted approaches to accelerate model building, validation, and reuse across projects, with human-in-the-loop decision support.
• Maintain rigorous documentation, communicate results through technical reports, presentations, and peer-reviewed publications, and collaborate across cross-functional teams.

Skills

Metabolic modeling

Cell culture experiments

Python or MATLAB

US work authorization

Education

PhD in relevant field

Tools

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow to advance mammalian cell culture modeling for early- and late-stage clinical development. You will build mechanistic and data-driven models and apply ML to guide feeding strategies and process optimization.

The role emphasizes model-guided design, real-time monitoring and cross-functional collaboration within BR&D, offering a two-year term with potential extension and opportunities for full-time positions.