Applications Scientist - Pathogen

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 Pathogen Project:

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. 

Your Role:

At EIT we are seeking an experienced and detail orientated Scientist to join the Applications Team within the Pathogen Project. This is a hands-on laboratory-based role within a small, skilled team developing cutting-edge metagenomic and genomic diagnostic tests for infectious diseases. Working collaboratively within the team, you will perform assay development experiments and assist in maintenance of the laboratory. Ideal candidates will have 2+ years previous laboratory experience using sequencing technologies coupled with microbiology or molecular biology skills, gained in an industry or clinical environment.

This is an excellent opportunity for an enthusiastic and motivated candidate with strong hands-on laboratory skills, good record-keeping and attention to detail.

Key Responsibilities:

• Perform laboratory experiments to assist with development and evaluation of sequencing based diagnostic assays for infectious disease applications.
• Maintain excellent records of laboratory work performed.
• Manage house-keeping and maintenance tasks within the research team, supported by the scientific operations team.
• Contribute to the generation of new research ideas for assay development.
• Keep up with the latest literature relevant to the field.
• Analyse and summarise data, and present data and results at internal meetings as required.
• Adhere to health and safety protocols within the laboratory.
• Collaborate with colleagues to help automate diagnostic assays, leading to cost-effective, easy to use tests.
• Collaborate with AMR, Informatic and Machine Learning colleagues to ensure the tests provide accurate pathogen ID, AMR and relatedness results.