Research Associate - 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 .org.

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.

• 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.

At EIT we are seeking a highly motivated and skilled Research Associate in the Crop Transformation Pipeline team at the pioneering Plant Biology Institute. The Research Associate will support high‑throughput transformation execution, ensuring consistent delivery of edited or transgenic plants across target crops. This role focuses on throughput, reproducibility, and industrial‑grade delivery of high‑quality transgenic and gene‑edited events.

• Conduct transformation, tissue culture, regeneration, and plant recovery workflows
• Maintain culture health, media preparation, and sterile technique standards
• Track experiments using LIMS and digital systems
• Assist in optimisation trials and troubleshooting experiments
• Support scaling initiatives and throughput acceleration
• Maintain detailed lab documentation and inventory
• Train and mentor Technicians
• Standardise SOPs and ensure rigorous documentation following GLP & QMS
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to incorporate cutting‑edge applied technologies to develop commercial products
• Present scientific work at seminars within the team and at external meetings, including contributing to laboratory‑wide discussions on developments within the field
• Assist in training and mentoring technicians in various transformation and tissue culture skill sets
• Collaborate with experts at the forefront of research on AI, automation, and generative biology across the EIT ecosystem
• Assist in the translation of scientific results into publications, commercial opportunities consistent with the EIT humane endeavours
• Recognise the acting on opportunities for the creation of IP and cooperating in patent protection and in impact delivery