Scientist, Enzymology - 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:

The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) is seeking a highly motivated and skilled Scientist in Enzymology to join the ‘Yield and Photosynthesis’ programme. This initiative aims to increase sustainable agricultural output from existing farmland by developing crop varieties with higher yield and greater resilience to a changing climate. The successful candidate will play a central role in developing and optimising high-throughput enzyme assays to characterise plant protein variants identified through evolutionary-guided discovery, AI-assisted protein design, and other trait discovery approaches. Working closely with computational scientists and the EIT AI and Robotics Institute, they will establish robust, scalable workflows for protein expression, purification and biochemical characterisation, while helping to develop automated laboratory pipelines that accelerate the identification and optimisation of improved proteins for crop enhancement. The ultimate goal of this research is to deliver transformative improvements in agricultural productivity and resilience, enabling farmers to achieve greater yields from existing agricultural land while reducing the environmental footprint of food production.

Your Responsibilities:

The main responsibilities of the successful candidate will be to design, develop, and optimise high-throughput enzyme assays for the quantitative characterisation of protein variants. Successful delivery of this research objective will require expertise in enzyme assay development, protein expression and purification, biochemistry and data analysis. The successful candidate will apply strong experimental design and troubleshooting skills to develop robust, scalable and reproducible assay platforms using simple, reliable plate-based readouts suitable for high-throughput screening and automation.

Insights generated from this work will directly inform iterative cycles of protein engineering and go/no go decisions for in vivo validation, with the goal of generating higher yielding crops that are resilient to our changing climate. The successful candidate will work closely with computational scientists to translate in silico protein design, AI-guided predictions and trait discovery outputs into experimentally testable hypotheses.

This role offers a unique opportunity to develop cutting-edge biochemical characterisation technologies at the interface of enzymology, protein engineering and plant science. The successful candidate will serve as a key scientific contact for EIT's AI and Robotics Institute, working closely with automation engineers, roboticists and AI researchers to design, implement and optimise automated workflows for protein expression, purification and enzyme assays. Working within a highly multidisciplinary team, they will help establish experimental platforms that integrate automation, computational design and biochemical validation to accelerate protein optimisation.

The scientist will be expected to contribute to publications and IP generation and play an active role in translating research into real-world and commercial solutions aligned with EITʼs mission of humane technological advancement. This is an exciting opportunity to perform cutting-edge research in a dynamic, well-supported, and purpose-driven environment.

Additional Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with experts at the forefront of AI and automation to develop high throughput biochemical workflows.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to incorporate emerging technologies into enzyme characterisation pipelines.
• Design, implement, and optimise enzyme assays for quantitative evaluation of protein activity.
• Develop robust protein expression and purification workflows to support biochemical characterisation at scale.
• Analyse and interpret enzyme kinetic data to identify high-performing protein variants and guide iterative protein engineering.
• Present scientific work at seminars within the team and at external meetings, including contributing to institute-wide discussions on developments within the field.
• Draft scientific papers and contribute to preparation of publications.
• Assist in the translation of scientific results into commercial opportunities consistent with the EIT humane endeavours.
• Recognise and act on opportunities for the creation of IP and cooperating in patent protection and in impact delivery.

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Completed PhD in biochemistry, enzymology, protein engineering, molecular biology or a related discipline.      
• Demonstrated experience designing, developing and optimising high-throughput enzyme assays, for the quantitative characterisation of proteins, including robust, scalable spectroscopic, fluorometric or colorimetric assays suitable for plate-based screening and automation.
• Strong understanding of enzyme function, enzyme kinetics and biochemical assay development, with experience optimising assay performance, sensitivity, reproducibility and throughput.
• Demonstrated experience in recombinant protein expression or cell-free protein expression, protein purification and biochemical characterisation.
• Demonstrated ability to design robust experiments, troubleshoot complex biochemical workflows and optimise high-throughput assay performance for reproducibility, scalability and automation.
• Strong proficiency in molecular biology and protein biochemistry techniques, including construct design, molecular cloning, PCR, protein expression, affinity and chromatographic protein purification, and biochemical characterisation.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct independent research to the highest standard, and to publish results in peer-reviewed journals.
• Excellent skills in experimental design, data analysis, statistical evaluation, and visualisation.
• Excellent communication and collaborative skills, with the ability to work effectively within multidisciplinary teams spanning computational and experimental research.

 

Desirable Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Experience developing or implementing automated laboratory workflows, including liquid-handling systems for protein expression, purification or biochemical assays.

• 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