Job offer

French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (INRAE); France; Sur place; EUR 35 000 - 50 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

A leading agricultural research institute in France seeks a researcher specializing in plant biology and fungal plant pathogens. You will work on identifying plant susceptibility factors and characterizing protein interactions using functional genomics. Ideal candidates hold a PhD in Biological Sciences with expertise in molecular biology techniques. This is a permanent full-time position based in Palaiseau, France, offering opportunities for collaboration and innovative research.

Qualifications

• Doctorate in a relevant field, preferably in plant sciences.
• Experience in functional genomics and plant-pathogen studies.
• Proven record of conducting independent scientific research.

Responsabilités

• Develop a research program on plant susceptibility factors to fungal diseases.
• Characterize modes of action of fungal effectors.
• Utilize genomics and molecular techniques to validate targets.

Connaissances

Expertise in plant biology

Knowledge of plant/pathogen interactions

Functional genomics approaches

Molecular biology techniques

Formation

PhD in Biological Sciences or a related field

Outils

Yeast two-hybrid assays

Immunoprecipitation

In vitro affinity-based approaches

Description du poste

French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (INRAE)

Organisation/Company French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (INRAE) Department 1290 BIOGER Research Field Biological sciences Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) Application Deadline 5 Mar 2026 - 23:59 (UTC) Country France Type of Contract Permanent Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 35 Offer Starting Date 1 Sep 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

You will join the BIOGER (BIOGER – Biology and management of fungal plant pathogens) unit, comprising 44 permanent staff members and around thirty non-permanent staff. BIOGER is a reference centre for research on aerial diseases of major crops and the functional analysis of the determinants of fungal pathogenesis. You will work within the ‘Effectors and Pathogenesis in Leptosphaeria maculans’ (EPLM) team comprising 43 researchers with complementary expertise in genetics, epigenomics, metagenomics, plant pathology, and fungal functional genomics, and 4 engineers-technicians staff providing support in biochemistry, microbiology, genotyping, and epidemiosurveillance. You will benefit from the support of the cytology and bioinformatics platforms, air-conditioned chambers, phytotrons and BSL3 laboratories, as well as all the joint technical support (e.g. greenhouses, glassware service). You will collaborate with colleagues from the unit studying other Brassicaceae pathogens. As BIOGER is part of the Saclay Plant Sciences Graduate School, you will benefit from the close proximity of expertise in plant biology and Graduate School platforms to explore the functions of the genes/networks identified.
You will conduct your research within the EPLM team, which is working on the interaction between Leptosphaeria maculans and rapeseed, and has highlighted the existence of conserved proteins and structural families of fungal effectors shared among fungal plant pathogens. This discovery opens up new research avenues aimed at identifying common plant targets that can be eliminated or modified to achieve multi-disease tolerance. On this basis, you will develop a research programme to identify plant susceptibility factors to fungal diseases in Brassicaceae by analysing molecular interaction between plant proteins and fungal effector, focusing on effector families conserved among fungal pathogens (such as L. maculans and Colletotrichum higginsianum), and by studying plant responses to infection. Through your expertise in biology/plant physiology and knowledge of plant/pathogen interactions, you will contribute to characterise the modes of action of conserved fungal effectors and identify allelic variants of plant targets that confer enhanced tolerance to infection.
Your expertise in plant biology and defence mechanisms will help you develop a research project on the physiology of plant-pathogen interactions, focusing on the manipulation of the plant by the fungus during infection. For this purpose, you will use functional genomics approaches to identify plant targets of fungal effector proteins conserved among fungal plant pathogens, as well as the cellular processes they manipulate. You will use screening strategies to identify effector targets in various Brassicaceae species for which the genomes, transcriptomes, and proteomes are available (yeast two-hybrid assays, immunoprecipitation, in vitro affinity-based approaches, etc.). Rapeseed will be the main study model. For L. maculans, you will also take advantage of transcriptomic data generated during the infection of susceptible plants, plants with total or quantitative resistance, or non-host plants, as well as in the presence or absence of effectors. You will select the most relevant targets to be studied and validate them using genomic (search for allelic variants in the available genomes), molecular (generation and analysis of mutants or analyses of the available mutant collections), cytological (BiFC, co-localisation), and biochemical approaches. You will be able to rely on established collaborations with laboratories experts in plant/pathogenic fungi molecular interactions (I2BC, IPS2, IGEPP, PHIM, CBS, France; University of Amsterdam and Wageningen, the Netherlands; University of Melbourne, Australia; Massey University, New Zealand), as well as partnerships with breeders from the rapeseed sector and the interbanch institute Terres Inovia.

Number of offers available 1 Company/Institute French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment (INRAE) Country France City PALAISEAU Postal Code 91120 Geofield