Scientist, Plant Biology and Functional Genomics - Plant Biology Institute

Join us at EIT

At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we’re on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, engineers, researchers, educators and innovators to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges in four transformative areas:

• Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology
• Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change & Managing CO₂
• Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

This is ambitious work - work that demands curiosity, courage, and a relentless drive to make a difference. At EIT, you’ll join a community built on excellence, innovation, tenacity, trust, and collaboration, where bold ideas become real-world breakthroughs. Together, we push boundaries, embrace complexity, and create solutions to scale ideas from lab to society. Explore more at www.eit.org.

Welcome to the Plant Biology Institute

The Plant Biology Institute, headed by Professor Steve Kelly, is a key part of the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) Oxford. The institute aims to develop impactful and commercially sustainable solutions for improving global food production and planetary health through pioneering plant science research.

The Plant Biology Institute will unite world-class researchers who are focused on expanding the frontiers of plant science. Our research is focused on enhancing our ability to feed the planet while simultaneously improving the climate and ecosystem outcomes of food production. By embedding cutting-edge plant science research within an organisation that is focused on solving global challenges at scale, we aim to accelerate the timeline from discovery to global impact.

Areas of exploration include

• Improved plant productivity, both indoors and outside.
• Reduced reliance on inputs including water, fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides.
• Novel decarbonised plant-based production platforms for food and medicines.
• Advanced technologies that speed up discovery and deployment in plants.

Researchers will have access to state-of-the-art laboratory and plant growth facilities and have opportunities to collaborate with experts at the forefront of research on AI, automation, and generative biology across the EIT ecosystem. They will also work with global leaders in market development, commercialisation, and impact creation. The Plant Biology Institute has long-term substantial funding to support the unique scale and ambition of its vision.

Your Role

EIT is seeking a highly motivated and skilled Scientist in Plant Biology and Functional Genomics to join its pioneering Plant Biology Institute. The successful candidate will identify and prioritise genetic targets and engineering strategies to modify plant cell growth, cell division, morphology, viability, developmental state, and other relevant cellular phenotypes.

Working closely with the AI, Molecular Engineering, Plant Transformation teams, the scientist will translate biological hypotheses into testable genetic perturbations and guide the interpretation of resulting phenotypes.

The scientist will be expected to contribute to publications and IP generation and play an active role in translating research into real-world and commercial solutions aligned with EIT’s mission of humane technological advancement. This role offers a unique opportunity to conduct high-impact research at the forefront of plant science while collaborating across multidisciplinary teams to drive innovation from lab to global impact.

Responsibilities

• Develop and test the hypotheses on mechanisms controlling plant cell growth, division, morphology, and/or cell wall biosynthesis or remodelling.
• Define biological strategies to identify and prioritise genetic targets, such as genes, gene modules and regulatory networks associated with plant cell growth, cell division, viability and other relevant developmental phenotypes.
• Evaluate candidate targets using biological knowledge, literature evidence, experimental data and results from AI-modelling analyses.
• Design suitable genetic perturbation strategies for candidate genes, including gene knockout, silencing, activation, overexpression or controlled modulation of endogenous gene expression.
• Work with Molecular Engineering team to design vectors, promoters, regulatory elements and deploy relevant molecular tools according to the experiments.
• Collaborate with the Plant Transformation team to implement genetic perturbation and validate their phenotype in plant cell culture systems.
• Design and lead experiments to quantify the effects of genetic perturbations on cell growth, division, morphology and viability.
• Apply iterative design-build-test-learn cycles to refine target selection and engineering strategies based on experimental results.
• Communicate scientific findings clearly across plant biology, molecular engineering, AI, automation and leadership teams to prioritise subsequent research and development activities.

Strong research background with expertise in one or more areas relevant to the role. Indicative examples include:

• Investigating the genetic or regulatory mechanism of plant cell division, cell expansion, cell wall biology or plant growth.
• Identifying and validating genes or pathways that influence a quantitative cellular or developmental phenotype.
• Using functional genomics, transcriptomic data to mine candidate genes.
• Developing genetic perturbation strategies, such as identify the suitable promoters, inducible expression, gene activation, silencing.
• Leading translational studies that convert mechanistic plant biology into genetic engineering strategies with product potential.

Experience

• PhD in plant cell biology, plant developmental biology, biotechnology, genetics, functional genomics or closely related discipline or industry is desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to test and validate mechanistic biological hypotheses linking genes, pathways or regulatory networks to plant phenotypes.
• Understanding of comparative biology concepts, including orthologues, paralogues, gene family, pathway conservation and the limitations of extrapolating findings across species.
• Knowledge of plant genetic modification approaches, including genome editing, gene-expression modulation, to define appropriate intervention strategies and interpret the outcomes.
• Ability to work with molecular engineering team to translate biological hypothesis into practical gene or gene module modification.
• Strong experimental design, data interpretation, troubleshooting, scientific communication and collaboration skills.

Experience

• Relevant postdoctoral research experience in academia and/or industry is desirable.
• Experience working with plant cell culture, suspension cells, protoplasts.
• Familiarity with synthetic biology or regulatory circuit design for coordinated control of one or more genes.
• Experience using transcriptomic data to identify targets and validate genetic perturbations.
• Experience with high-throughput phenotyping, imaging-based cellular assays or automated workflows to measure the phenotypic changes on plant cell growth
• Experience working in an interdisciplinary environment with molecular engineering, genome-editing, imaging, AI or computational biology team.
• To understand (or have a desire to understand) the path to impact for the research area in question and where appropriate to consider user feedback and market research in designing research experiments.
• Ability to build both internal and external relationships. Working collaboratively with others outside of their discipline and across job functions.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic research environment where priorities evolve based on stage-gated milestones, emerging data, and strategic decisions.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to rapidly experiment and iterate.
• Collaboration

Skills

a proactive approach to flagging risks, dependencies and opportunities, and a sense of both accountability for one’s own work and awareness of the bigger picture.

• Communication: Ability to distil scientific ideas into actionable insights for colleagues in various domains and functions (written and verbal).
• Builder mentality: improves workflows, anticipates failure modes, and creates processes from scratch rather than waiting for established infrastructure. Builds and optimizes while executing.

Benefits

• Salary dependent on experience + travel allowance + bonus
• Enhanced holiday. Our annual leave allowance is 25 days plus 8 bank holidays and an additional 3 days between Christmas and New Year. You will also have the opportunity to purchase an additional 5 days annual leave in January and July.
• Pension - Employer contribution 7.5%, minimum employee contribution 5%
• Life Assurance.
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance as standard for you, your partner and any dependents. Including hospital Cash Plan
• Employee discounts
• Electric car scheme
• Nursery Salary Sacrifice scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Family Planning
• Neurodiversity support including advise and assessments
• Coaching & Therapy services