Scientific Technician / Research Associate

Who they are

Wild Bioscience are radically enhancing crops to feed the world sustainably and promote a wilder planet. Wild plants have had half a billion years to evolve natural solutions for thriving in almost every environment on Earth. Our proprietary genetics platform harnesses these wild innovations to enhance the world’s most important crops. Wild-enhanced crops would simultaneously boost farm yields and promote gigaton-scale carbon mitigation strategies. If you’re looking for a start-up that has enormous potential for impact on growers, consumers, and the planet, please read on.

Wild Bioscience is a well-funded, fast-paced Oxford University spin-out working from state-of-the-art labs and offices at Milton Park, Oxfordshire. They are about to enter an exciting phase of growth and are looking for a driven and curious scientist to join them and significantly contribute to delivering the change they believe in.

Their values

Their work is guided by three core values that define who they are and how they approach their mission:

• Curiosity: They fuel their desire to explore the unknown, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and sparking innovation. They ask questions, seek answers, and embrace lifelong learning.
• Community: They believe in the strength and support gained through collaboration and inclusion. As part of a global community, they nurture connections to drive meaningful impact for both people and planet.
• Courage: They face challenges head-on, take calculated risks, and stand up for their beliefs. Their bravery propels them to take action, even in the face of adversity.

If these values resonate with you, they invite you to join their team of passionate scientists and innovators working at the cutting edge of bioscience.

Job Description

Are you someone who enjoys hands-on lab work and thrives in a fast-paced, collaborative research environment? Wild Bioscience are looking for a motivated Scientific Technician or Research Associate (based on experience level) to join their plant genotyping team, playing a key role in their molecular biology and genotyping pipelines. The ideal candidate is happy at the lab bench and equally comfortable with the computational analysis of genotyping data.

In this position, you will be working with a team of scientists and technicians, supporting genotyping workflows across wheat, soybean, and other crops. You will work with liquid handling systems, contribute to multi-disciplinary research projects, and contribute to the processes and standards that keep their science running smoothly.

Job Responsibilities

• Contributing to the Plant Genotyping team’s mission to provide timely and accurate genotyping of plant samples
• Preparing materials, solutions, and equipment for experiments, and performing routine tasks including sampling, plant maintenance, nucleic acid extractions and PCR
• Running established genotyping pipelines using automation, and running command-line based analysis of genotyping and sequencing data (e.g. amplicon sequencing)
• Designing and validating primers (and probes) for new and existing genotyping assays
• Using and helping to maintain command-line tools and analysis scripts, and contributing to pipeline improvements and automation
• Collecting, organising, and analysing genotyping data, and maintaining accurate records in our Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) and databases for key stakeholders
• Following and contributing to SOPs to ensure consistent, high-quality operations — and optimizing existing approaches where improvements can be made
• Collaborating with multidisciplinary teams, assisting with troubleshooting, and contributing to presentations and team meetings

The ideal candidate

Essential

• A Bachelor’s degree in a relevant biological science (or equivalent hands-on experience); a Master’s is desirable.
• Strong, hands-on wet-lab molecular biology experience, particularly nucleic acid extractions and PCR
• Familiarity with bioinformatics tools — comfortable moving between the bench and computational analysis of genotyping and sequencing data
• Some experience running and troubleshooting analysis tools in a Linux/Unix environment using a command line interface
• Experience designing primers (and ideally probes) for genotyping or other molecular assays
• Be a team player in a multi-disciplinary environment, building relationships, and gaining trust from others through honesty, compassion, and authenticity.
• Have a curious and courageous mindset, enjoy stepping up to try new things in a changing environment, and taking initiative where there is often ambiguity.
• Want to seek out new opportunities to develop, share learnings with others, and strive to support others in their own development and growth.

Desirable

• Proficiency with LINUX, Python, and shell scripts to build or improve data analysis pipelines
• Wet lab experience with high throughput sample processing, liquid handling, or PCR based techniques (e.g. qPCR, dPCR, KASP)