Senior Bioinformatician - Pathogen

The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) tackles humanity’s greatest challenges by turning science and technology into impactful global solutions. Focused on areas like health, food security, sustainable agriculture, climate change, clean energy, and robotics in an era of artificial intelligence. EIT blends groundbreaking research with practical applications to deliver lasting results.

A cornerstone of EIT mission is its upcoming 300,000-square-foot research facility at the Oxford Science Park, set to open in 2027. This cutting-edge campus will feature advanced labs, an oncology and preventative care clinic, and collaborative spaces to strengthen its partnership with the University of Oxford. It will also host the Ellison Scholars, driving innovation for societal benefit.

The Pathogen Mission highlights EIT’s transformative approach, using Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and Oracle’s cloud technology to create a global pathogen metagenomics system. This initiative aims to improve diagnostics, provide early epidemic warnings, and guide treatments by profiling antimicrobial resistance. The goal is to deliver certified diagnostic tools for widespread use in labs, hospitals, and public health.

EIT fosters a culture of collaboration, innovation, and resilience, valuing diverse expertise to drive sustainable solutions to humanity’s enduring challenges.

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Bioinformatician to join our dynamic team. Reporting to the Lead Bioinformatician, you will play a key role in the development, evaluation, and deployment of innovative bioinformatic solutions in real-world healthcare and research settings.

This is a unique opportunity to contribute to impactful projects with global potential, working at the intersection of cutting-edge science and technology. You’ll collaborate closely with internal teams and external partners, bringing a mission-driven mindset and adaptability to help achieve our shared goals.

Your insights and expertise will be actively encouraged as we continuously improve our platform, products, and operational practices. This role offers the chance to make a meaningful difference through bioinformatics and cloud-based analysis, benefiting patients, hospitals, and public health systems worldwide.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, develop and evaluate cutting-edge bioinformatics workflows that unlock insights into infectious-disease genomics - including antimicrobial-resistance calls, pathogen identification, and strain relatedness.
• Build and maintain robust, scalable analysis pipelines; benchmark new tools and continuously optimise performance and reproducibility.
• Work confidently across a variety of data types, with a solid understanding of the upstream wet- lab processes that generate them.
• Leverage major public repositories (ENA, GenBank, GISAID and others) to source, curate and integrate genomic datasets.
• Partner closely with multidisciplinary teams —academics, computer scientists, biostatisticians and bench biologists - to translate complex data into actionable research and clinical insights.
• Keep at the forefront of advances in infectious-disease genomics, bioinformatics and computational biology, and proactively introduce innovative ideas, tools and methods.
• Champion a culture of excellence by setting clear performance goals and providing timely, constructive feedback to colleagues and collaborators.

Requirements

Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Doctorate-level expertise (PhD or equivalent): in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Microbiology, Genetic Epidemiology, Genomics or a related field, combined with 3+ years of hands-on bioinformatics or computational biology experience.
• Track record in infectious disease genomics: hands-on experience analysing pathogen genomes for epidemiology, surveillance, outbreak response, and/or diagnostics.
• Deep scientific insight: thorough understanding of the principles and emerging trends in metagenomics, infectious disease genomics and antimicrobial resistance research.
• Workflow architect & NGS pipeline champion: advanced in Bash, Python, R, and containerised processes (Nextflow/nf-core, Docker), with mastery of standard microbial genomics workflows and designing scalable pipelines that turn raw reads into reliable, actionable results.
• Influential collaborator & communicator: proven ability to mentor peers and convey complex ideas clearly to scientific and non-scientific audiences.

Desirable Skills, Qualifications and Experience:

• Experience working with cloud computing (OCI, AWS, etc).
• Experience with both long (eg. ONT) and short (eg. illumina) read sequencing data
• Experience with regulatory guidelines and systems (e.g., FDA, CE, UKCA, EUCAST) as well as certification standards such as ISO 27001.
• Familiarity with machine learning and data visualization techniques.
• Experience working in a biotech or pharma industry setting.
• Experience translating academic research outputs into commercial products
• Experience with statistical modelling for microbiology and infectious disease research

Benefits

We offer the following salary and benefits:

• Salary:  Competitive salary on offer
• Enhanced holiday pay
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric car scheme

Why work for EIT:

At the Ellison Institute, we believe a collaborative, inclusive team is key to our success. We are building a supportive environment where creative risks are encouraged, and everyone feels heard. Valuing emotional intelligence, empathy, respect, and resilience, we encourage people to be curious and to have a shared commitment to excellence. Join us and make an impact!

Terms of Appointment:

• You must have the right to work permanently in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary.
• You will live in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford.
• During peak periods, some longer hours may be required and some working across multiple time zones due to the global nature of the programme.