Scientist - Applications Team (Pathogen)

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 Mission exemplifies EIT’s commitment to transformative science. It aims to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases by leveraging whole genome sequencing (WGS)-based metagenomic and pathogen-specific analytical tools. This remit includes the development of a decentralised, sample-to-answer sequencing diagnostic platform for infectious diseases, enabling rapid and accurate analysis of patient samples without prior assumptions. Supported by Oracle Inc.’s cloud-computing scale and security infrastructure, the Pathogen Mission is progressing towards certified diagnostic products for deployment in laboratories, hospitals, and public health organisations worldwide.

Your Role:

At EIT we are seeking an experienced and detailed orientated Scientist to join the Pathogen Applications Team and support microbiology, molecular biology, sample processing and sequencing activities.

This is a hands-on laboratory role supporting the receipt, processing and tracking of clinical and laboratory samples; preparation of quantified microbial cultures; qPCR and sequencing workflows. You will work closely with scientists across the Pathogen Applications Team to generate high-quality, traceable samples and data for research and development projects.

We are particularly interested in candidates who have developed strong practical laboratory skills in a diagnostic, clinical, industry, high-throughput or similarly structured laboratory environment. Previous experience as a Medical Laboratory Assistant (MLA), Associate Practitioner, laboratory technician, research technician, or in a comparable industry laboratory role would be highly relevant.

This role would suit an early-career scientist with a relevant undergraduate degree and practical laboratory experience who is looking to broaden their skills across microbiology, molecular biology and sequencing technologies within a fast-paced research and development environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Receive, log, process and track clinical and laboratory samples, maintaining accurate sample identification and traceability.
• Perform routine laboratory processing of clinical and laboratory samples using established procedures.
• Perform microbiology workflows as required, including culture preparation, plating, colony counting, culture enumeration, and preparation of isolates or cultures for downstream applications.
• Perform molecular biology workflows, including nucleic acid extraction, quantification and preparation of samples for downstream analysis.
• Perform routine sample and assay quality control, including microbiological and molecular QC.
• Perform qPCR assays and support the interpretation and documentation of routine QC results.
• Support the preparation of samples and libraries for sequencing.
• Assist with sequencing run set-up and routine sequencing operations following established protocols.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date laboratory records, sample tracking information and experimental documentation.
• Prepare reagents, media, buffers and other laboratory materials according to established procedures.
• Support inventory management, including stock checks, consumable management, reagent monitoring and ordering.
• Perform routine laboratory housekeeping, equipment checks, cleaning and maintenance activities.
• Work in accordance with laboratory health and safety requirements, SOPs, risk assessments and HTA requirements where applicable.
• Identify and escalate laboratory, sample, QC or sequencing issues to appropriate senior team members.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across the Pathogen Applications Team to support changing laboratory priorities and workflows.