We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to join a NERC funded project to develop novel bacteriophage-based tools for microbial source tracking. The project is a collaboration between the Universities of Bath, Brighton, Sheffield and the Environment Agency and the successful candidate will join a highly supportive and collegiate team working across these institutions. This role, based at the University of Bath, will focus on the analysis of viral metagenomic data to identify human gut associated bacteriophage sequences that can be exploited to monitor water quality. In particular the role will involve:

• Supporting the development of methods for generating viral metagenomes from wastewater samples
• Analysis of metagenomes and identification of bacteriophage signatures with high diagnostic potential for feacal pollution
• Development of algorithms and pipelines to detect faecal pollution in water samples based on viral metagenome analysis
• Supporting the validation of new source tracking tools and evaluating performance against existing methods. 

About you

Applicants must have a PhD (or be close to completion/have equivalent experience) in relevant disciplines, and experience with analysis of bacterial and bacteriophage sequence data. Experience in microbial ecology and/or environmental microbiology related to pollution and management of surface waters is also desirable but not essential. 

Further information

This role is offered on a full time (36.5 hours per week) fixed term basis with a proposed start date of July 2026 for a duration of 24 months. 

For an informal discussion regarding the role please contact Brian Jones at bvj20@bath.ac.uk.

We consider ourselves to be a university where difference is celebrated, respected and encouraged. We have an excellent international reputation with staff from over 60 different nations and have made a positive commitment towards gender equity and intersectionality receiving a Silver Athena SWAN award. We truly believe that diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds will lead to a better environment for our employees and students and encourage applications from all genders, backgrounds, and communities, particularly from under-represented groups, and value the positive impact that will have on the university. We are committed to maintaining a safe and secure environment for our students, staff, and community by reinforcing our Safer Recruitment commitment.

We're very proud to be a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant. an accredited Disability Confident Leader; autism friendly university, committed to building disability confidence and supporting disabled staff. 

What we can offer you

We're continually expanding our benefits package to better support you and enhance your experience with us and the below is just an example of some of the many great benefits we offer:

• Free counselling services through Health Assured
• Cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme
• Staff discount at Team Bath gym
• Staff discounts on postgraduate tuition fees
• Staff discount on language courses
• Generous employer contributory pension schemes
• Generous annual leave allowance with an additional 5 discretionary days so that you can enjoy a positive work life balance
• A wide range of personal and professional development opportunities including Apprenticeships, LinkedIn Learning and more
• Free entry to the Holburne Museum in Bath
• Local discounts and more
• A family-friendly workplace 
• An excellent reward package that recognises the talents of our diverse workforce
• Relocation allowance
• Visa reimbursement and Interest-Free Loan to help with the cost of some immigration expenses

Find out more about our benefits and watch the video to hear from our staff about what makes the University of Bath a great place to work as well as following us X and LinkedIn.

 

Closing Date: 20 May 2026

Department: Education & Research

Salary: £38,784 to £46,049

We are seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences to contribute to the design and delivery of practical classes in biochemistry and microbiology, alongside supporting lecture-based teaching, ensuring students develop core experimental and analytical skills. This is a full-time, permanent contract.

The job purpose can be summarised as follows: 

• To plan and deliver taught programmes of education and support student learning at undergraduate and postgraduate level (as appropriate). This will include the design, delivery and development of teaching material, lectures, tutorials, laboratory classes assessment and marking of coursework.
• To play a role in developing the teaching culture and student experience of the University.
• To provide teaching-related management and administrative duties.

Whilst it is expected that teaching will be informed by research/professional expertise, there is no research component to this role.

About you

• A collegiate, enthusiastic and self-motivated individual with a commitment to excellence in higher education and providing a high-quality experience for our students
• Demonstrable depth and breadth of knowledge in metabolism for biochemistry and biomedical sciences
• Experience in delivering high-quality laboratory teaching and coordinating practical components of the curriculum. This is particularly important for large and diverse cohorts, including Natural Sciences students.
• A strong commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion, mirroring the University’s values.

About the department

The Department of Life Sciences at the University of Bath has over 90 academic staff across a broad range of disciplines including biochemistry, cell & developmental biology, evolution, genetics, immunology microbiology, pharmacology, pharmaceutical pharmacy and structural biology. The vast majority of research within the merged departments was rated as 4* or 3* in the last (REF2021) assessment. 

Staff are encouraged to engage in continuous professional development activities, such as fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, as well as having an understanding of discipline-specific issues in relation to teaching and/or supporting learning.

Further information

This is a full time role (36.5 hours per week) with an expected start date of September 2026.

For informal enquires please contact Dr Amanda Mackenzie (Head of Department), prsam@bath.ac.uk or Dr Zoë Burke (Director of Teaching), bsszdb@bath.ac.uk . However, please ensure your application is submitted via the University website.

Alongside completion of the online application form, you should also upload a full Curriculum Vitae.

We consider ourselves to be a university where difference is celebrated, respected and encouraged. We have an excellent international reputation with staff from over 60 different nations and have made a positive commitment towards gender equity and intersectionality receiving a Silver Athena SWAN award. We truly believe that diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds will lead to a better environment for our employees and students and encourage applications from all genders, backgrounds, and communities, particularly from under-represented groups, and value the positive impact that will have on the university. We are committed to maintaining a safe and secure environment for our students, staff, and community by reinforcing our Safer Recruitment commitment.

We're very proud to be a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant. an accredited Disability Confident Leader; autism friendly university, committed to building disability confidence and supporting disabled staff. 

What we can offer you

We're continually expanding our benefits package to better support you and enhance your experience with us and the below is just an example of some of the many great benefits we offer:

• Free counselling services through Health Assured
• Cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme
• Staff discount at Team Bath gym
• Staff discounts on postgraduate tuition fees
• Staff discount on language courses
• Generous employer contributory pension schemes
• Generous annual leave allowance with an additional 5 discretionary days so that you can enjoy a positive work life balance
• A wide range of personal and professional development opportunities including Apprenticeships, LinkedIn Learning and more
• Free entry to the Holburne Museum in Bath
• Local discounts and more
• A family-friendly workplace 
• An excellent reward package that recognises the talents of our diverse workforce
• Relocation allowance
• Visa reimbursement and Interest-Free Loan to help with the cost of some immigration expenses

Find out more about our benefits and watch the video to hear from our staff about what makes the University of Bath a great place to work as well as following us X and LinkedIn.

 

Closing Date: 20 May 2026

Department: Education & Research

Salary: £47,389 to £56,535

The Departments of Life Sciences and Chemistry invite applications for a Prize Fellowship in Drug Discovery, an exceptional opportunity for an emerging research leader to develop an independent, internationally recognised programme at the interface of chemistry and biology.  The position will be run as a joint appointment across the two departments. 

This prestigious Fellowship is aligned with the new Centre for Drug Discovery (CDD), a cross-faculty initiative bringing together chemists, biologists, data scientists and engineers to accelerate drug discovery through innovation in synthesis, screening, computation and translation. CDD will focus on emerging modalities and enabling technologies from cyclic small molecules, peptides, antibodies and macrocycles that explore new 3D chemical space, to AI-guided synthesis, flow automation and direct-to-biology screening. By coupling Bath’s strengths in synthetic chemistry, chemical and structural biology, and advanced delivery science, the Centre will provide a distinctive environment for developing next-generation molecular tools and therapeutic leads.

We seek a creative and collaborative scientist tackling fundamental challenges in contemporary drug discovery, ideally with a strong grounding in chemistry and an interest in applying molecular or computational technologies to biological problems.

While we encourage applications from a range of backgrounds, we particularly welcome candidates whose research aligns with one or more of the following areas: 

•    Medicinal chemistry for emerging modalities such as peptides, molecular glues, PROTACs, ADCs or covalent inhibitors

•    Innovative screening approaches, e.g. DNA-encoded libraries, affinity-selection mass spectrometry, chemoproteomics or AI/ML-driven virtual screening. 

•    Computational drug discovery including molecular design, macrocycle conformations, docking, or predictive models for permeability and pharmacokinetics. 

About the Prize Fellowship

The Bath Prize Fellowship offers three years of protected research time and the opportunity for a permanent academic appointment, subject to performance. Fellows will have access to state-of-the-art laboratories for automation, high-throughput synthesis, compound screening and advanced computation, and will join a vibrant cross-faculty community engaging with industry, the regional GW4 innovation network and opportunity to benefit from the South-West Life Science network.

About Drug Discovery at Bath

Drug discovery at Bath is driven by close integration between Life Sciences and Chemistry, uniting expertise in peptide design, synthetic chemistry, chemoproteomics and computational modelling. Core strengths include chemical and structural biology, pharmacology and antibiotic discovery, with projects spanning early-stage molecular design through to pre-clinical mechanism-of-action studies.

Life Sciences provides cutting-edge laboratories for molecular and cellular biology, microbiology and pharmaceutical sciences, including tissue-culture suites, automated liquid handling and a zebrafish facility for in vivo pharmacology. Chemistry complements this with world-class infrastructure for automated and flow synthesis, compound characterisation (MS, NMR, DReaM Facility) and access to Bath’s High-Performance Computing and AI/ML platforms for virtual screening and molecular design. Both departments have a strong track record in innovation with a number of spin out companies. 

Together, these resources offer an exceptional environment for innovative researchers to develop and test new approaches to molecular discovery.

Informal enquiries & application

For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Scott Lovell, Life Sciences (sdl35@bath.ac.uk) or Dr Alex Cresswell, Chemistry (ajc202@bath.ac.uk), co-leads of the Bath Centre for Drug Discovery. Please ensure applications are submitted via the University’s online system. Alongside the online form, please upload a full CV. 

We are committed to providing a supportive and inclusive working environment for all staff, including mentorship and flexible working arrangements. The Departments of Life Science, Chemistry and the University currently hold Athena SWAN Silver awards, and we are working to further improve equality, diversity and inclusion for the benefit of all staff. If you would like to discuss any issues or other aspects of the working environment with a member of staff who is not involved in the recruitment process, please contact Prof Stephen Husbands, Director of Research in the Department of Life Sciences (prssmah@bath.ac.uk).

We're continually expanding our benefits package to better support you and enhance your experience with us and the below is just an example of some of the many great benefits we offer:

• Free counselling services through Health Assured
• Cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme
• Staff discount at Team Bath gym
• Staff discounts on postgraduate tuition fees
• Staff discount on language courses
• Generous employer contributory pension schemes
• Generous annual leave allowance with an additional 5 discretionary days so that you can enjoy a positive work life balance
• A wide range of personal and professional development opportunities including Apprenticeships, LinkedIn Learning and more
• Free entry to the Holburne Museum in Bath
• Local discounts and more
• A family-friendly workplace 
• An excellent reward package that recognises the talents of our diverse workforce
• Relocation allowance
• Visa reimbursement and Interest-Free Loan to help with the cost of some immigration expenses

Find out more about our benefits and watch the video to hear from our staff about what makes the University of Bath a great place to work as well as following us X and LinkedIn.

Closing Date: 17 May 2026

Department: Education & Research

Salary: £47,389 to £56,535