Principal Investigator

Job Summary:

Responsible for leading and managing an independent research group within the Generative Biology Institute (“GBI”), delivering a program of bold, ambitious and transformational research which is broadly aligned with GBI’s vision of making biology engineerable and unlocking its potential for good

Generative Biology Institute

The vision of the GBI is to lay the foundations for engineering biology, and unlock its potential for good. To achieve this, we must overcome two key challenges. First, we need the ability to write in the natural language of biology, enabling the rapid and scalable synthesis of entire genomes with precision. Second, we must understand what to write, determining which DNA sequences will generate biological systems that perform the desired functions. Addressing these challenges will allow us to harness the full power of biology to create transformative solutions across health, agriculture, clean energy and more.

Part of the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford (“EIT”), GBI is led by founding Director Jason Chin. It will house 30 groups and more than 500 researchers at scale, focused on solving the two critical challenges in making biology engineerable and applying the solutions to addressing the global challenges encapsulated in EIT’s Humane Endeavors.

GBI will have sustained and substantial funding to support the unique scale and ambition of its ground-breaking vision for engineering biology. GBI researchers will also be supported by cutting edge facilities including mass spectrometry, flow cytometry, sequencing, automation, scientific computing, bioinformatics, and machine learning. GBI will also have access to substantial compute resources that can be leveraged to further accelerate progress. The environment at GBI will allow researchers to undertake ambitious, long-term, collaborative research, and we will actively support the translation of research to commercial applications, where appropriate.

GBI will commence operations in 2025. The team will work from a purpose-made facility in the Oxford Science Park, currently under construction. Once complete, this state-of-the-art facility will include more than 40,000 m² of research laboratory and office space.

Ahead of the launch of GBI in Q4 2025, we are now accepting applications for Principal Investigator positions at all levels, including Senior Principal Investigator (equivalent to Tenured Professor) and Principal Investigator (equivalent to a Tenure-Track Professor) as we build a world-class faculty. We expect to make 5 or more appointments before the end of 2026, with further appointments in 2027 and 2028 as we scale.

Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford (“EIT”)

EIT’s purpose is to have a global impact by fundamentally reimagining the way science and technology translate into end-to-end solutions and delivering these solutions in programs and platforms that respond to humanity’s most challenging problems.

EIT is investing significant resources in a new world-class research and development facility in the Oxford Science Park, including GBI. EIT is committed to cultivating a community where excellence is achieved through collaboration, trust, innovation and tenacity. We foster an environment where everyone’s experience and expertise are valued. We are curious and resilient in our efforts to drive long-term, sustainable innovation to meet humanity’s most enduring challenges.

Key Responsibilities:

• To set the research direction for your group and ensuring research activity is consistent with that direction and directly relevant to GBI’s vision.
• To recruit and manage a group of outstanding researchers, which may include postdocs, doctoral students (in partnership with the University of Oxford, we are establishing a doctoral programme in Generative Biology with up to 20 fully funded doctoral student positions per year), research assistants and other scientists.
• To mentor highly promising early career researchers to achieve the group’s goals and progress their aligned career objectives.
• To collaborate with other groups within GBI and with colleagues within the broader EIT family to deliver bold, ambitious and transformational research that would not be possible within an individual group.
• To help shape the facilities in GBI as part of the scientific strategy for delivering GBI’s vision.

Requirements

Essential Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• A PhD in a relevant scientific discipline, such as synthetic biology, computational biology and AI, microbial, plant and human cell biology, genomics, robotics and automation, and nucleic acids chemistry.
• A strong publication record in your field, demonstrating the ability to deliver bold, ambitious and transformational advances.
• Track record of building and managing collaborations, both internally and with external academic and/or industry partners, to enhance research capabilities.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to engage with senior researchers, technical teams, and external stakeholders.
• We welcome applications from researchers who have experience running their own group as a Professor, Associate Professor, or Assistant Professor, and from those seeking their first independent position.
• We also actively encourage applications from those who have worked in an commercial setting, such as a biotech and companies leveraging AI for research.
• Assessment of applicants with respect to knowledge skills and experience criteria will be calibrated for career stage.

Benefits

Our proposition for our Principal Investigators:

• Research groups will be supported by substantial core funding, for posts, consumables, and equipment matched to the needs of the project.
• Additional posts can be made available to support specific research projects, particularly for ambitious collaborative projects across groups.
• Group leaders will have the ability to also supervise graduate students and participate in the doctoral program in generative biology being established through the University of Oxford-EIT alliance.
• Access to cutting-edge facilities and infrastructure, initially including mass-spectrometry, flow cytometry, imaging, automation and, sequencing, with intention to expand facilities, in line with GBI’s scientific strategy, as we scale.
• Access to significant compute capacity and capability, including in partnership with EIT’s AI team.
• Group leaders will be encouraged to publish work from their group.
• Opportunity to translate research with commercial application into a separate company in partnership with GBI’s translational team and with financial and operational support from EIT.
• Where appropriate, we will support applications for faculty appointments at Oxford University, building on the University of Oxford-EIT Alliance

We offer the following benefits: 

• Globally competitive salary and bonus.
• Pension and travel allowance.
• Training and development opportunities.
• Additional benefits including enhanced holiday pay, life assurance, income protection, private medical insurance, hospital cash plan, therapy services, perk box.

Terms of Appointment:

• You must be eligible to work in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary. We are open to sponsoring employment visas for this role; however sponsorship is not available for all visa types or in all circumstances. Eligibility will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
• You must be based 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 our work.

Your application

Please submit a CV (no more than 3 pages, including a list of up to ten key publications), and cover letter explaining why you would like to join GBI (no more than 2 pages)

Please submit a proposal (no more than 5 pages) of the research that you would like to undertake at GBI covering:

• The research questions that you would like answer over a 5-10 year period and how this relates to the vision of GBI.
• How this relates to your previous work.
• The challenges that you need to overcome and the resources that you would need in order to be successful.
• How you would intend to partner with colleagues at GBI and with the broader EIT family.

We are interested in all research that is consistent with GBI’s vision. Some relevant areas include:

• Molecular and Cellular Design and Evolution.
• Enzyme design.
• Design of molecular assemblies and machines.
• Experimental accelerated evolution.
• Robotics, automation and autonomous labs.
• Genome mining and informatics-based discovery.
• Computational AI sequence to function.
• Modelling and building genetic and cellular circuits.
• Cellular design.
• Expanding chemistry in biology.
• Nitrogen fixation.
• Carbon fixation.
• Programming cellular assemblies and synthetic tissues.
• Scalable error free DNA and genome synthesis.
• Microbial Genome Synthesis and Design.
• Gb-scale Genome Synthesis for plants, human cells and animals.
• Combinatorial synthetic genomics.
• DNA delivery.
• Predictive models of DNA sequence to function, at the scale of genes and genomes.
• Human health applications and delivery mechanisms.

We will be recruiting Principal Investigators over the next 2–3 years, with applications reviewed every one to six months as part of a rolling selection process.