Scientist – Gut Barrier Biology

Research & Innovation

As a Scientist – Gut Barrier Biology, you will help shape the next generation of nutrition solutions by generating human-relevant evidence on gut barrier function. In this hands-on laboratory role, you will build and operate intestinal organoid and monolayer platforms that translate complex biology into clear, decision-ready insights for innovation teams.

About the job

As a Scientist in Gut Barrier Biology, you will take ownership of human tissue derived intestinal organoids and organoid-derived 2D epithelial monolayers, using them to evaluate nutritional ingredients, biotics, fermentation-derived samples and formulation prototypes. You will apply these systems in barrier-function and mechanistic assays to generate interpretable, high-quality datasets. Your work will focus on reproducibility, quality and scientific clarity, ensuring robust datasets that guide project decisions and accelerate learning.

This is a laboratory-first position. You will spend the majority of your time working at the bench, including handling primary human intestinal tissue, isolating epithelial cells, and generating, maintaining and working with intestinal organoid cultures. The role involves structured, repetitive experimental work and requires strong attention to detail, consistency and resilience when experiments do not deliver expected outcomes.

You will play a key role in strengthening assay robustness, reducing variability and evolving in vitro platforms to ensure they deliver reliable and scalable insights for the business. In addition, you will communicate findings clearly to project teams and senior stakeholders, including through scientific presentations and contributions to publications.

Success in this role means consistently delivering high-quality, reproducible organoid and barrier assay data that can be confidently used to guide project decisions on nutritional interventions targeting gut barrier function.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain organoid platforms by establishing human intestinal organoids from primary tissue, ensuring consistent culture performance, traceability and quality control
• Develop and run epithelial barrier models by generating organoid-derived 2D monolayers and optimising workflows for differentiation, intervention exposure and barrier challenge conditions
• Deliver decision-ready datasets by running functional assays, including barrier integrity and permeability measurements, and combining these with molecular and cellular readouts
• Drive robustness and lab excellence by identifying sources of variability, improving protocols, maintaining accurate documentation and contributing to SOPs and method transfer
• Communicate scientific insights clearly by sharing results, conclusions and recommendations with project teams, and preparing conference abstracts, presentations and scientific manuscripts where relevant

About you

You enjoy working at the intersection of science and application, where laboratory results translate into real impact on nutrition and health. You are motivated by hands-on experimental work and take pride in delivering consistent, high-quality data that others can rely on.

You will join a multidisciplinary Gut Barrier team working across cell biology, microbiology, immunology and formulation, where collaboration is key to turning scientific insights into practical solutions.

In your way of working, you bring structure to complex experiments and maintain a strong focus on scientific rigour and reproducibility through disciplined documentation and quality control. You take ownership of your work, continuously look for ways to improve experimental robustness, and communicate findings in a clear and accessible way.

You contribute to an open and supportive team environment, where ideas are shared, challenged constructively and built upon to move projects forward.

Must-haves

• Master’s or recently completed PhD degree in cell biology, molecular biology, biomedical sciences, immunology, or a related life sciences discipline, or a Bachelor’s/HBO degree combined with relevant hands-on laboratory experience.
• Proven, hands-on experience establishing human intestinal organoids from primary tissue
• Experience with organoid culture, including maintenance, passaging, expansion, cryopreservation and recovery
• Experience generating organoid-derived 2D epithelial monolayers and running barrier integrity and permeability assays, including transepithelial electrical resistance or impedance-based measurements
• Working experience with mechanistic methods such as qRT-PCR, ELISA, immunostaining, microscopy or imaging, Western blotting or flow cytometry
• Strong documentation habits and the ability to execute structured, repeatable workflows with a high level of consistency and traceability
• Clear communication skills in English and ability to work effectively in a collaborative, cross-functional environment

Nice-to-haves

• Experience in intestinal epithelial biology, gut barrier biology, mucosal biology or organoid-based disease and nutrition models
• Experience with co-culture systems involving epithelial organoids and immune, microbial, stromal or neuronal components
• Experience testing nutritional ingredients, prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics, fermentation-derived samples or food and nutrition formulations in organoid models
• Familiarity with epithelial differentiation, mucus-related readouts, inflammatory or barrier disruption models or epithelial stress-response assays
• Exposure to transcriptomic or epigenetic readouts

About Danone

At Danone we are committed to our mission “bringing health, through food to as many people as possible”. We are working together to make sure that our brands, like Nutricia and Nutrilon, create real benefits for people, communities and the planet. You will be part of one of the largest Certified B Corps™ in the world. Being B Corp means to be part of a select movement of companies verified to be meeting the highest standards of social and environmental criteria and using business as a force for good.

Our state-of-the-art research and innovation centre builds bridges between food and science and is global in reach, founded on over 125 years of experience in life & food science, technology and user experience and is at the forefront of pioneering advances in specialized nutrition.

We offer:

All Danoners receive a complete package of benefits. This includes a competitive salary and yearly bonus, a premium free pension, 30 days of annual leave (with the opportunity to purchase more) and you will receive a monthly health care allowance. In addition, you can get discount on your gym membership, and we offer initiatives focused on nutrition, physical, and mental health. We provide continuous learning opportunities through workshops, online courses and training sessions.