Postdoctoral Researcher – Rapid Pathogen Detection – Molecular Assay Development

Rapid detection of pathogenic infections in aquaculture enables effective disease management practices to be implemented. However, current diagnostic methods are largely confined to laboratory settings and rely on labour intensive, time consuming protocols. Reliable point of care devices are currently lacking within the fish health sector, yet such tools would enable rapid responses to infectious agents and greatly improve treatment outcomes.

We are seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join our multidisciplinary team developing novel molecular diagnostics for the rapid detection of viral and bacterial pathogens. This role focuses on the end to end design, optimisation, and validation of pathogen specific Recombinase Polymerase Amplification (RPA) assays, including sample to answer workflow development and the integration of these assays into lateral flow diagnostic platforms.

Essential Qualifications

Minimum

• Minimum of PhD in Molecular Biology / Biotechnology / Microbiology / Biochemistry or related life science discipline or exceptionally, equivalent* research experience (including industrial R&D).
• Hands on molecular biology proficiency, including nucleic acid extraction/handling and PCR/qPCR and/or isothermal amplification (e.g., RPA, LAMP).
• Primer/probe design and optimisation experience for PCR/qPCR and/or isothermal assays, with evidence of improving specificity, sensitivity (LoD), and robustness.
• In silico assay development competence: use of sequence databases and alignment tools (e.g., BLAST, Clustal Omega, MAFFT) and primer/probe design tools (e.g., Primer3, Primer BLAST or equivalent).
• Proficient in IT and digital communication platforms.

* EU defines PhD equivalent 4 years fulltime research after primary degree.