Job Details

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.

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.

Your Role: At EIT, we're seeking an experienced and detail-orientated Senior Scientist, Biotechnology, to contribute to the early-stage development of a device-based metagenomic pathogen detection platform within EIT Oxford's Pathogen Programme.

Key Responsibilities

• Designing and executing statistically robust, hypothesis-driven experiments with appropriate controls to isolate key variables and generate reproducible, decision-informing data.
• Applying structured experimental design approaches to systematically explore design space and identify critical performance drivers.
• Investigating the physicochemical principles underlying nucleic acid adsorption, elution, surface interactions, and partitioning within device materials and reagent systems.
• Characterising enzyme-substrate interactions under non-ideal conditions.
• Developing and applying quantitative analytical frameworks to define performance metrics.
• Systematically identifying sources of variability and technical risk.
• Translating mechanistic findings into clear design recommendations.
• Working closely with engineers to align biochemical and chemical requirements with device design constraints.

Requirements

Essential Knowledge, Skills and Experience: PhD (or equivalent experience) in Biochemistry, Chemistry, Chemical Biology, Bioengineering, Biotechnology, or a closely related discipline. Deep expertise in characterising biomolecular systems. Demonstrated ability to design controlled experiments. Experience with surface functionalisation and bioconjugation strategies. Strong understanding of nucleic acid purification, separation, and manipulation. Hands-on experience in assay development and analytical method development.

Desirable Knowledge, Skills and Experience: Experience quantifying non-nucleic acid chemical species. Demonstrated ability to interrogate the physicochemical behaviour of polynucleotides, enzymes, and related analytes within complex or miniaturised systems. Familiarity with library preparation chemistries and sequencing workflows. Experience working with microfluidic systems, polymer interfaces, or material-biomolecule interactions.