(Senior) Scientist, Research Metagenomics - Pathogen in Oxford

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.

Welcome to the Pathogen Project: Within this ecosystem, the Pathogen Mission exemplifies EIT’s commitment to transformative science. It aims to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases by leveraging whole genome sequencing (WGS)-based metagenomic and pathogen-specific analytical tools. This remit includes the development of a decentralised, sample-to-answer sequencing diagnostic platform for infectious diseases, enabling rapid and accurate analysis of patient samples without prior assumptions. Supported by Oracle Inc.’s cloud-computing scale and security infrastructure, the Pathogen Mission is progressing towards certified diagnostic products for deployment in laboratories, hospitals, and public health organisations worldwide.

Your Role: At EIT we are seeking an experienced and detail orientated Senior Scientist/Scientist to join a small, fast-moving team developing next generation metagenomic diagnostics for bloodstream infections. Bloodstream infection diagnostics remain heavily reliant on culture-based methods, which are often slow, can miss fastidious or non-culturable pathogens, and may be impacted by prior antibiotic treatment. These limitations can delay appropriate therapy and negatively affect patient outcomes, highlighting the need for faster, more sensitive, and culture-independent approaches. In this role, you will apply and develop molecular biology–driven approaches to build novel sample-to-sequencing workflows, tackling key challenges in sample preparation, pathogen enrichment, and highly efficient nucleic acid extraction and amplification from complex biological samples. You will work closely with an experienced, multidisciplinary team spanning metagenomics, microbiology and diagnostics development, with the opportunity to shape experimental approaches from an early stage.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and optimise end-to-end sample-to-sequencing workflows for pathogen detection from blood
• Develop and improve sample preparation methods, including:
• Removal of inhibitors present in blood
• Pathogen concentration and enrichment
• High-efficiency nucleic acid extraction
• Develop sequencing-compatible workflows, with a focus on long-read / nanopore sequencing
• Troubleshoot and solve complex challenges in low-biomass biological systems
• Design experiments, interpret results, and iterate rapidly based on data
• Contribute to additional projects within the team, including development of workflows for respiratory infections and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) applications
• Maintain clear, reproducible experimental records and contribute to SOP development
• Contribute new ideas and approaches to improve performance, robustness and scalability of workflows
• Collaborate closely with device team, bioinformatics and data platform / pathogen database teams

Requirements

Essential Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• PhD in molecular biology, microbiology, genomics, biochemistry or a related field
• Strong hands-on molecular biology experience (e.g. PCR, qPCR, nucleic acid extraction, library preparation)
• Experience developing or optimising experimental workflows (not just executing established protocols)
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot and improve complex assays
• Strong experimental design and data interpretation skills
• Excellent organisation, record-keeping and communication skills

Desirable Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Experience working with bacteria, microbiology or infectious disease systems
• Familiarity with sequencing technologies, particularly long-read platforms (e.g. Oxford Nanopore)
• Experience working with complex or low-input samples (e.g. blood or clinical samples)
• Biochemistry experience (e.g. enzyme optimisation, reaction conditions, assay development)
• Exposure to metagenomics workflows
• Experience in an industry or translational research environment
• Experience in assay development

Key Attributes:

• Curious, hands-on and motivated by solving difficult experimental problems
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, early-stage research environment
• Strong sense of ownership and accountability
• Collaborative and proactive, with a willingness to contribute beyond immediate responsibilities
• Able to balance scientific rigour with speed and iteration

Benefits

Why Join: You will be part of a small, high-impact team on the cutting edge of infectious disease diagnostics. This role offers the opportunity to work on technically challenging problems, contribute to the development of novel diagnostic approaches, and directly influence the direction of a growing programme.

Our Benefits:

• Salary: Competitive + travel allowance + bonus
• Enhanced holiday pay
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric Car Scheme

Working Together – What It Involves: You must have the right to work permanently in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary. In certain cases, we can consider sponsorship, and this will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. You will live in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford (or be willing to relocate). This is a Lab based, fully onsite role.