Postdoctoral Fellow - Evolution and Generative AI

Reporting to: Katya Osipova - Group Leader

Working pattern
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This is a full-time, fixed term (4 years) position on Crick terms and conditions of employment.

Salary: From £47,500 with benefits, subject to skills and experience.

Final date to receive applications: 16th of August 2026 m

The Francis Crick Institute is Europe’s largest biomedical research institute under one roof. Our world-class scientists and staff collaborate on vital research to help prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative conditions.

The Crick is a place for collaboration, innovation and exploration across many disciplines. A space where the brightest minds can pursue big and bold ideas and discover answers to crucial scientific questions. We support them in a dynamic environment which fosters excellence with state-of-the-art infrastructure, cutting-edge facilities, and a creative and curious culture. We’ve removed traditional boundaries of departments, divisions and disciplines and instead have an open approach that supports every researcher.

This gives us the freedom to take risks and carry out high-quality, pioneering research. Creating a space for discovery without boundaries helps us to turn our science into benefits for human health and the economy.

The Osipova lab a new research lab opening at The Francis Crick Institute. We are focused on understanding how animals evolve a broad diversity of metabolic adaptations and how these biological innovations can be harnessed to engineer the next generation of metabolic systems.

To achieve this, we are developing two complementary research programmes:

• Comparative genomics and high-throughput functional screening to identify genotype-phenotype relationships and reveal the molecular basis of metabolic innovation.
• Generative AI-driven metabolic design, supported by experimental validation, to predict, create, and expand metabolic capabilities beyond those currently found in nature.

Together, these approaches aim to build a generalisable framework that translates evolutionary insights into synthetic biology and redefines the limits of metabolism.

We are looking for a highly motivated postdoc with proven research abilities and an excellent publication record who will lead the development of the generative AI-based framework.

Specifically in this project, we will explore the potential of generative artificial intelligence to aid the design of novel metabolic systems. You will be working closely with the experimentalist in the lab to build ‘design-build-test-learn’ pipeline through computational design and experimental validation.

You will:

• Develop, apply, and iteratively refine protein/genomic language models to design novel protein variants informed by evolutionary and phenotypic data
• Build computational pipelines linking sequence variation to predicted metabolic function
• Establish a design-build-test-learn cycle in close collaboration with the experimentalist in the lab, who will test designed variants
• Contribute to publications, conference presentations, and give strategic input into the wider direction of the lab's computational endeavours

You will have:

• PhD (or in the final stages of PhD submission) in computational biology, evolutionary genomics, computer science, or a related field*
• Strong analytical, quantitative, and coding skills (particularly in Python)*
• Experience handling and analysing large-scale biological datasets
• Track record of writing papers as evidenced by publications or submitted manuscripts in refereed journals*
• Experience with computational protein design (desirable)
• Experience working with cloud/HPC environments, workflow orchestration or reproducible computational pipelines (desirable)

Everyone who works at the Crick has a valuable role to play in advancing the Crick’s mission and shaping our culture.

• We are bold
  . We make space for creative, dynamic and imaginative ideas and approaches. We're not afraid to do things differently.
• We are open
  . We're highly collaborative and interactive, and make sure our…