Senior Microbiologist - Pathogen

At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we are on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, policy makers, and entrepreneurs 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 will 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 for lab to society. Explore more .org.

Within this ecosystem, the Pathogen Project exemplifies EIT's dedication to ground‑breaking science. It seeks to transform pathogen risk management, detection and response by leveraging Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS)-based metagenomic and pathogen‑specific analytical tools. The goal is to power metagenomic devices using long‑read sequencing technologies by building a comprehensive database of pathogen information to inform response. Enabled by Oracle Inc.'s cloud‑computing scale and security, the Pathogen Project is advancing toward certified diagnostic tools for deployment in laboratories, hospitals, and public health organisations worldwide.

We are seeking an experienced and detail‑oriented Senior Microbiologist to establish and lead pathogen phenotyping capabilities within its Pathogen Program. This is a primarily lab‑based role, focused on building capacity for antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of bacterial isolates, with future expansion into phenotyping of fungal and viral systems. Working at the intersection of microbiology, automation, and global health innovation, the successful candidate will design and implement CLSI‑ and EUCAST‑compliant assays, develop novel bacterial phenotyping methods, and collaborate with engineering and informatics teams to enable automated and data‑integrated testing pipelines.

You will also play a key role in developing and standardising deployable workflows for use in EIT's partner laboratories worldwide, contributing to a global network for pathogen surveillance and resistance monitoring.

• Design and implement AST protocols for bacterial pathogens that are compliant with EUCAST and CLSI standards
• Develop and validate new or enhanced bacterial assays that increase the depth and quality of phenotypic data derived from each sample
• Design phenotyping assays for fungal and viral pathogens as the program expands
• Evaluate and recommend appropriate instrumentation platforms (e.g., Thermo Fisher Sensititre, BD Phoenix, bioMérieux VITEK, or equivalent systems)
• Establish and optimise MALDI‑TOF MS workflows for pathogen identification and resistance mechanism profiling
• Drive innovation in assay methodology, identifying opportunities to improve throughput, precision, or data richness

• Lead the build, commissioning, and operational readiness of a high‑throughput reference testing facility, capable of processing 10,000+ isolates per year
• Oversee day‑to‑day operations, ensuring high‑quality, compliant, and safe laboratory practices
• Supervise, train, and mentor a small team (1‑2 scientists) to ensure consistent and reproducible assay performance
• Participate in data generation and sample processing, contributing directly to the laboratory's annual throughput

• Collaborate closely with the Pathogen Automation Team to implement robotic and semi‑automated workflows for sample processing, AST setup, plate reading, and data capture
• Contribute to the development of integrated laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to streamline data collection, analysis, and reporting
• Pilot and evaluate emerging technologies in automated liquid handling, optical detection, and AI‑assisted interpretation of phenotypic data