Research Associate in Fungal Molecular Biology, Engineering and Control

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Johnston lab within the School of Medicine and Population Health. The role is part of a major new externally funded interdisciplinary programme led by Dr Thomas Paterson, bringing together bioengineering, microbiology, neuroscience and translational neurotechnology.

The programme will explore whether engineered fungal networks can be developed as controllable bioelectronic interface materials. Current neural-interface technologies remain limited by trade-offs between surgical invasiveness, tissue compatibility, spatial coverage and long-term function. Fungal networks offer a distinctive biological platform: soft, three-dimensional structures that can be grown, modified and tested as part of future bioelectronic interface systems.

The appointed candidate will contribute to an ambitious research programme developing candidate fungal biointerfaces and evaluating them against clear safety, control and functional criteria as part of a large multidisciplinary team.

You will lead the fungal engineering strand of the programme, developing candidate fungal chassis with properties required for controllable bioelectronic interface materials. This will include fungal strain selection, culture and characterisation; reporter or labelled background strains; genome editing or other molecular approaches; strain validation; and reliable handover of candidate fungal materials to the safety and function work packages.

We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in filamentous fungi, fungal genetics, CRISPR/genome editing, molecular microbiology, reporter strain construction, fungal morphology or related synthetic biology approaches. Experience with fungal systems would be valuable, but we welcome candidates with strong transferable expertise in microbial genetics and engineering.

The role would suit a highly motivated researcher who can work independently while contributing to a large interdisciplinary programme. You will be expected to develop robust experimental workflows, work closely with colleagues across the biological and bioelectronic strands of the project, and contribute to publications, milestone reporting and future development of the platform.