About the role

Please note interviews will be held on a rolling basis while the advert is live. It is therefore strongly recommended that you submit your application as early as possible. The advert will be closed once a suitable candidate is selected.

PIONEER (Programmable In-Organelle Nucleic-acid Entry, Expression and Retention) is an ambitious UK research consortium from Imperial College London, the University of Bristol, and the University of Glasgow, funded through the UK’s Advanced Research and Innovation Agency’s (ARIA) Precision Mitochondria programme, with a single bold goal: to build, from end to end, the ability to engineer the genome of mitochondria, the energy-producing compartments inside our cells. Mitochondria carry their own small genome, and reliably installing new, synthetic genetic material inside them has long been one of the great unsolved problems in biology. PIONEER sets out to crack it: to deliver large pieces of synthetic mitochondrial DNA across the mitochondria's notoriously difficult double membrane, switch on new genes inside, and make those changes stable over time. Ultimately, PIONEER seeks to demonstrate successful mitochondrial genome engineering in vivo and thereby open a new frontier for fundamental biology and for future therapies against mitochondrial disease.

What makes this work distinctive is how deliberately interdisciplinary it is. PIONEER brings together leaders in nanomaterials and drug delivery; automation, AI and machine learning for chemistry; synthetic cell engineering; single-molecule biophysics; advanced spectroscopy; genome engineering; and single-cell genetics. The whole programme is built so these fields feed into one another rather than working in isolation. You would be joining a large collaborative team of PDRAs and PhD students whose culture is designed to enable early-career researchers to achieve ground-breaking results by working fluidly between disciplines. It is a rare opportunity to work at the intersection of several cutting-edge fields on a problem that will not only bring exciting new fundamental insights but also, if solved, would be a significant scientific breakthrough.

This particular research post will focus on developing and exploiting an automated high-throughput workflow for the synthesis and characterisation, and optimisation, of precision polymer nanogels for programmable mitochondria delivery. This will involve the further development of an in-house developed automated workflow for the synthetic screening of nanogel formulations and will include miniaturisation and the incorporation of machine learning-based optimisation algorithms to target polymer nanogels with optimised biophysiochemical properties. You will work closely with another PIONEER post-doc focussing on the synthesis of nanogel monomers for mitochondria drug delivery, and a PIONEER PhD researcher developing these optimisation algorithms to ensure the active-learning optimisation software can be incorporated into the experimental workflow.

Please note, this job is part of an Advanced Research + Invention Agency-funded project, subject to contract negotiations.

What you would be doing

You will:

• Utilise, and develop where necessary, automated high-throughput approaches for experimental screening of polymer nanogel formulations and bulk data curation
• Work closely with computational collaborators to ensure an appropriate quantity and quality of experimental data can be provided in a timely manner
• Work closely with computational collaborators to ensure target materials are potentially synthesisable, and then synthesise and characterise promising predicted materials

What we are looking for

• Awareness of previous research on automated approaches in chemistry
• Knowledge and practical experience in synthesis, purification and characterisation techniques
• Experience of dealing with multidisciplinary experimental and theory collaborators
• Practical experience within a research environment and publications in relevant and refereed journals

What we can offer you

• The opportunity to continue your career at a world-leading institution and be part of our mission to continue science for humanity.
• Grow your career: gain access to Imperial’s sector-leading dedicated career support for researchers as well as opportunities for promotion and progression.
• Sector-leading salary and remuneration package (including 41 days off a year and generous pension schemes).
• Be part of a diverse, inclusive and collaborative work culture with various staff networks and resources to support your personal and professional wellbeing.

Further information

Please note interviews will be held on a rolling basis while the advert is live. It is therefore strongly recommended that you submit your application as early as possible. The advert will be closed once a suitable candidate is selected.

A start date from 01 September 2026 onwards is available.

Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as a Research Assistant.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week).

This role is a fixed-term contract for 36 months.

If you require any further details about the role, please contact: Prof. Becky Greenaway, r.greenaway@imperial.ac.uk

Available documents