Scientist, Plant Metabolic Engineering - 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:

EIT is seeking a Scientist to join the Cell Based Production programme. The successful candidate will contribute to innovative research in plant specialised metabolism engineering, within the overall programme goal of advancing plant and cell tissue culture for novel decarbonised plant-based production of food and/or medicines, taking projects from fundamental discovery through to technological development and scalable application.  

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in plant specialised metabolism, with expertise in analysing metabolic pathways and products, as well as experience in engineering plant cells with state-of-the-art synthetic biology approaches. 

 The scientist will be expected to show awareness 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 and conduct research focused on understanding and engineering plant specialised metabolism in plant cell cultures to produce high-value plant natural products with applications in health and medicine in a highly collaborative environment.
• Develop and apply novel engineering and synthetic biology strategies to optimise biosynthetic pathway flux and product tolerance.
• Collaborate with EIT Oxford AI and Robotics teams to establish model-driven engineering and rapid iteration of engineering cycles.
• 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.
• 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.

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• PhD in Biochemistry, Plant Biology, Biotechnology or other related discipline.
• Strong background in plant specialised metabolism.
• Experience in specialised metabolite analytics. 
• Experience in plant metabolic engineering and synthetic biology to modify or enhance metabolic outputs.
• Proficiency in applying advanced plant biotechnology approaches to interrogate and reprogram metabolic networks.

 

Desirable Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Expertise in utilising plant cell culture systems as platforms for metabolic studies and compound production.
• Working knowledge of targeted metabolomics, including small molecule separation and mass spectrometry.
• Experience with the use of laboratory automation and robotics.
• Experience with cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially with computational modellers.
• Demonstration of commercial awareness and versatility of research that could serve a wide range of different applications (e.g. oils, pharmaceuticals, foods); Development of partnerships with engineering, technical partners and licensees/channel partners.
• Interest in mentoring members of the research group and contributing to building and maintaining a publication record.
• Recognition of the value of translation of scientific results into commercial opportunities consistent with the EIT humane endeavours.

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 advise and assessments
• Coaching & Therapy services