Bioinformatician - 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:

We are seeking a highly motivated Bioinformatician to join the Bioinformatics platform team, which builds computational tools for plant biology in close collaboration with the phenotyping platform and research teams.

The successful candidate will work at the intersection of genomics, transcriptomics, and computational biology, to accelerate plant science research. By developing and implementing bioinformatics algorithms, your work will directly shape how biological questions are translated into computational analyses, enabling researchers to unravel complex traits and predict phenotypic outcomes with greater accuracy. The role will require working closely with bioinformatics engineers and research scientists to design and deliver enterprise-level analytical approaches that meet the evolving needs of the institute.

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in genomics and transcriptomics, experience working with complex plant genomes, and the ability to break down complex research questions into clear, tangible milestones for implementation.

Your Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement bioinformatics algorithms for the analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data.
• Translate complex research questions into well-defined analytical approaches and implementation milestones.
• Apply and evaluate machine learning methods to predict complex traits and phenotypic outcomes from genomic and transcriptomic data.
• Analyse and interpret large-scale genomic and transcriptomic datasets from complex plant genomes.
• Collaborate with bioinformatics engineers and systems administrators to integrate algorithms into production pipelines and workflows.
• Communicate analytical approaches and findings clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• PhD, or equivalent research experience, in Bioinformatics, Genomics, Computational Biology, or a related field.
• Strong background in genomics and transcriptomics, with demonstrated experience working with complex plant genomes.
• Experience with bioinformatics tools for genome assembly, annotation and variant analysis.
• Familiarity operating within Linux environments, including operating within HPC and/or cloud environments (e.g. SLURM, OCI).
• Experience applying machine learning methods to genomic and transcriptomic data, with an understanding of different ML approaches and their suitability for different biological questions.
• Demonstrated experience predicting complex traits and phenotypic outcomes from biological data.
• Proven ability to interpret complex research questions and break them down into tangible, actionable milestones.
• Strong programming and scripting skills for data analysis (e.g. Python, R).
• Deep understanding of bioinformatics file formats, tools, and databases (e.g. FASTQ, BAM/VCF, BLAST, reference genomes).
• Experience using and developing version-controlled codebases, familiarity with common tools (git) and development practices.
• Ability to work collaboratively with engineers, systems administrators, and research scientists to deliver research outcomes.

 

Desirable Knowledge, Skills, and Experience:

• Experience with workflow management systems (e.g. Nextflow, Snakemake).
• Experience with plant trait engineering and design.
• Understanding of FAIR data principles and metadata standards.
• Experience mentoring or guiding junior team members or collaborators.

Our Benefits:

• Salary dependent on experience + travel allowance + bonus
• Enhanced holiday + options to buy additional days
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric Car Scheme
• Childcare benefit

 

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).