Vector Design Lead - 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 an experienced Vector Design Manager to join the Crop Transformation Pipeline team within the Plant Biology Institute. This role will lead the design, build strategy, quality control and release of transformation vectors and genome editing reagents for gene edited and transgenic crop programme.

The successful candidate will be a technical authority in commercial vector design, plant molecular biology and crop genome editing technologies. They will translate trait and editing objectives into transformation-ready vector designs, ensuring that constructs are fit-for-purpose for high-throughput transformation, event recovery, molecular characterisation and downstream product development.

This role is critical to building an industrial-grade vector design capability for crops including corn, wheat and other strategic species. The candidate will establish design standards, construct QC criteria, vendor workflows, sequence/data management processes and clear handover packages for transformation and event delivery teams.

The candidate will own the upstream design-to-vector-release process, ensuring that all constructs entering transformation are technically sound, traceable, QC-approved and aligned with commercial and regulatory expectations.

Your Responsibilities:

• Lead vector design strategy for gene edited and transgenic crop projects, including expression cassette architecture, promoter and terminator selection, selectable/reporter marker choice, cargo design, guide RNA modules, donor templates and multiplex editing configurations.
• Translate trait biology, editing objectives and transformation requirements into vectors suitable for Agrobacterium-mediated, biolistic and emerging plant delivery systems.
• Provide expert guidance on CRISPR/Cas systems, Cas12, base editing, prime editing, multiplex editing, homology-directed repair, transgene-free approaches and marker-free design options where appropriate.
• Develop commercial-grade design rules that consider transformation performance, event quality, freedom-to-operate, stewardship, regulatory needs, trait stacking, construct stability and downstream assay ability.
• Own construct intake, design review, annotation, nomenclature, barcode strategy, version control, sequence verification, risk assessment and release criteria before vectors enter transformation workflows.
• Manage internal and external vector build activities, including DNA synthesis, cloning, plasmid QC, sequence confirmation, Agrobacterium strain selection, Agrobacterium introduction, glycerol stock tracking and vector delivery to transformation teams.
• Work closely with event delivery and genotyping colleagues to ensure vectors are designed with the right molecular assay strategy, including junction assays, copy number assays, guide/edit assays and marker/backbone detection.
• Build and maintain a structured vector inventory and construct database using ELN, LIMS and sequence management tools, ensuring full traceability from request through vector release.
• Create SOPs, design templates, QC checklists, construct handover forms and decision records to support reproducible, auditable and scalable vector delivery.
• Track vector design and build milestones, budgets, vendor dependencies, quality risks and delivery timelines, escalating blockers early and proposing contingency plans.
• Partner with legal, IP, regulatory, procurement and external collaborators to ensure vector designs and material transfers are aligned with programme and commercial requirements.
• Train and mentor scientists, research associates and project teams in vector design principles, sequence review, construct documentation and transformation-readiness criteria.
• The successful candidate will combine deep molecular design expertise with strong operational discipline. They will help reduce failed transformation cycles by ensuring that constructs are technically robust, well documented and suitable for downstream event confirmation before experiments begin.

The candidate will be expected to identify opportunities for IP creation, support commercial vector design decisions and contribute to EIT's mission of translating plant science into high-impact, scalable crop improvement technologies.

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• PhD in Plant Biotechnology, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Crop Science or a related discipline, or MSc with significant relevant industry experience. At least 5-7 years of experience in plant biotechnology, molecular design, genome editing or vector development.
• Demonstrated expertise in plant vector design for crop transformation, including binary vectors, expression cassette design, regulatory elements, selectable/reporter systems, multi-gene constructs and transformation-compatible plasmid architecture.
• Strong understanding of genome editing technologies, including CRISPR/Cas systems, guide RNA design, multiplex editing, base editing, prime editing, donor template design and edited event confirmation requirements.
• Experience with construct design and sequence analysis tools such as Benchling, SnapGene, Geneious, Vector NTI or equivalent platforms, with strong capability in sequence annotation, alignment and design review.
• Practical understanding of crop transformation workflows and the design features that influence transformation efficiency, regeneration, event quality and molecular characterization.
• Experience managing DNA synthesis, cloning, sequencing, plasmid QC, Agrobacterium preparation or related external service provider workflows.
• Strong project management skills, including milestone tracking, risk management, vendor coordination, resource planning and delivery against time-sensitive programme goals.
• Excellent documentation discipline, including SOP development, construct release records, version control, data integrity and traceable decision-making.
• Ability to work across multidisciplinary teams and communicate complex vector design decisions clearly to scientists, operational teams and leadership stakeholders.

Desirable Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Experience in industrial ag-biotech, commercial seed/trait development, crop transformation platforms or product development pipelines.
• Hands-on experience supporting vector design for corn, wheat, soybean or other major crop species.
• Knowledge of GLP, QMS or quality-controlled research environments relevant to commercial product development.
• Understanding of regulatory, freedom-to-operate, IP and stewardship considerations that influence commercial vector design and event advancement.
• Experience with high-throughput or automated design-build-test-learn workflows, including LIMS integration, barcoding and dashboard reporting.
• Experience building a new technical capability, establishing SOPs and leading small project teams or matrixed technical groups.

• 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