Media Development Intern (Madison)

About us

At the forefront of farming and food, UPSIDE Foods is innovating new ways to produce real meat, without the need to breed, feed and slaughter animals. Our process begins with an animal cell, which is cultivated and harvested as meat. The founding company of the industry, UPSIDE Foods is a mission-driven organization focused on bringing to meat lovers an authentic product that is truly humane, sustainably produced, nutritious and delicious! We are now expanding our team of dedicated professionals across disciplines to make better meat for a better world.

About this internship

The Research Intern (Cell Culture Media) will be responsible for supporting a project focused on understanding and identifying media components to improve the sensory profile of the cultivated-meat product. This role reports into the Discovery-Madison team and will support media development and characterization for the cultivation of cell-based meat, specifically crustaceans. You should be capable of building hypotheses, designing, troubleshooting, and executing experiments under supervision while employing critical thinking and organizational skills. This laboratory-based position requires performing wet-lab experiments, followed by analysis and interpretation of the data, presentation of findings to the Cell Culture Media and Discovery Team, and suggest follow-up experiments. The ideal candidate would be someone creative, enthusiastic, a fast learner with problem-solving skills.

Duties include

• Isolate and maintain new cultures isolated from animal sources
• Help media development projects for developing novel crustacean cell line media formulations
• Develop, implement, and interpret relevant cell-based functional assays to support optimization and characterization of novel crustacean cell lines and media formulations
• Analyze, synthesize, and present data to the research team and make recommendations for future research
• Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team of scientists
• Maintains laboratory notebook with detailed experiments and results
• Write, review and support continuous improvement of Standard Operating Procedures and helping to develop a Quality Management System

About you

• Last year in Bachelor's Program, or Masters student in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Bioprocessing, or related field
• Understanding of industry-level cell culture media development experience
• Understanding of cell metabolism, signaling, and physiology
• Nutritional biochemistry and metabolic pathway experience
• Mission-driven, self-directed with a strong technical background and work ethic
• Demonstrable ability to adhere to ambitious timelines
• Flexibility and willingness to expand skill set and responsibilities
• Excellent verbal and written communication,  organization, and time-management skills 

Length of internship

• 10 - 12 weeks

UPSIDE Foods is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Our company-wide mission is to create a product for everyone, so we are deeply committed to having teams and leaders that reflect this mission.