(Senior) Scientist, Plant Metabolic Engineering - Plant Biology Institute in Oxford

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 or Senior Scientist in Plant Metabolic Engineering to join its pioneering Plant Biology Institute. The successful candidate will lead the development of innovative metabolic engineering and synthetic biology approaches to manipulate plant cellular conditions. Specifically, the candidate will design, implement and characterise engineering strategies to optimise plant respiratory activity, energy status, and redox balance. These engineering approaches will be first evaluated and optimised in plant cell cultures guided by iterative design–build–test–learn cycles before being translated into whole plants for improving productivity.

The scientist will be expected to contribute to 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.

Your Responsibilities:

• Design, implement and characterise engineering strategies to manipulate plant respiratory activity, energy status, and redox balance.
• Develop and apply methods to quantify cellular respiratory activity, energy status, redox balance and other relevant metabolic responses in plant cells and tissues.
• Lead experiments in plant cell cultures and whole plants, ensuring that findings are effectively translated between the two experimental systems.
• Lead phenotyping of engineered cell cultures and plant lines using physiological, biochemical, imaging and multi-omics approaches (e.g., transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics).
• Apply iterative design–build–test–learn cycles to develop and refine engineering strategies.
• Advance promising engineering strategies into whole plants for functional validation.
• Drive rigorous experimental design, execution, and data interpretations, ensuring robust and reproducible scientific outcomes.
• Deliver research progress through stage gated milestones.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to incorporate cutting edge research techniques into experiments.
• Present scientific work at seminars within EIT and at external meetings, including contributing to discussions on developments within the field.
• Assist in mentoring other members of the research group where appropriate.
• Assist in the translation of scientific results into commercial opportunities consistent with the EIT humane endeavours.
• Recognise and act on opportunities for the creation of IP and cooperating in patent protection and in impact delivery.
• Conduct research ethically, in compliance with EIT policy, regulatory guidance, and best scientific practice.

Requirements:

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• PhD in Plant Biology, Synthetic Biology, Metabolic Engineering, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology or a related discipline.
• Strong research background with expertise in one or more areas relevant to the role. Indicative examples include:
• Demonstrated experience in plant metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.
• Demonstrated experience in the targeted manipulation of cellular processes.
• Demonstrated experience developing or applying methods to measure respiration, energy status, redox balance and/or other related metabolic parameters.
• Demonstrated experience of transient and stable genetic engineering in plant cell cultures, tissues and/or whole plants.

Desirable Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Experience with advanced microscopy analysis and imaging of plant cells or tissues using light, fluorescence, and confocal microscopy techniques.
• Experience with plant gas-exchange.
• Experience generating and preparing biological samples for transcriptomic, metabolomic and proteomic analyses.
• Experience with laboratory automation, robotics and high-throughput experimental workflows.

Benefits:

Our 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 advice and assessments.
• Coaching & Therapy services.

Working Together – What It Involves:

You must be eligible to work in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary. You must be based in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford. During peak periods, some longer hours may be required and some working across multiple time zones due to the global nature of the programme.