Plant Scientist

As the Plant Scientist, you will work closely with the Scientific Innovation leadership and play a pivotal role in the development and success of our Innovation Centre in this dynamic and quickly evolving market.
- This is a real opportunity to play a central role in ensuring the continuation and ongoing development of robust and accountable science behind our Health and Wellness portfolio.
- The role includes supporting the end to end product development process - from advising on sourcing and variety selection, through quality assessment and prototyping. The incumbent will be a key contributor in providing agronomic expertise and advice to the business and will take the lead on ensuring IP rights are in place where appropriate and that current research and practice are monitored, interpreted and disseminated to peers and applied as appropriate.- This role will be based at our state of the art research and development center located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland or could be based remotely (with regular travel to Neuchatel) for the right incumbentCore responsibilities:
- Support plant variety sourcing to meet the technical feasibility tests
- Define quality control process and technical requirements for sourcing of raw material to ensure traceability, consistency and quality of supply
- In close collaboration with internal and external partners you will define and characterize product and material requirements through prototyping and experimentations
- Establish guidelines for extraction and blending process leveraging the pertinent plant materials
- Prepare and present clear recommendations to partners and management to enable effective decision making and further research and development stages
- Develop library of plant varieties
- Guide plant variety selection and optimization process from seed to extract
- Guide the creation of feminized seeds of genetically uniform varieties to ensure consistent, mechanized good agricultural practices
- Communicate the latest science and discoveries in form or articles, reviews, internal and external communications
- Develop and maintain knowledge of the appropriate cultivar regulations
- Work closely with the integrated project teams solving technical challenges in relation to plant substrates

Role Requirements:
Previous pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical industry experience is of significant benefit.- PhD in Agricultural, Plant Molecular Biology, or related field with expertise in cannabis cultivars biology, cultivation and development
- Demonstrable years of experience in Industry with product development of consumer facing crops
- Experience in plant breeding, creation of desired varieties for field cultivation
- E Entrepreneurial thinking, creativity, curiosity
- Experience in sequencing, metabolomics, and statistics is of added value - as is familiarity with procedures/techniques for the extraction and analysis of samples using standard wet chemistry methods and advanced analytical instrumentation (gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS)
- A person that is curious, exploring, agile, and not late to take the lead, proposing new insights and solutions
- A person that can work independently with low supervision, not afraid to take their own decisions and responsibility

**Basel**:
Contract Type: Permanent

Closing date:
Reference: VN1279