About Elysia Bio

Elysia Bio is using plant biotechnology to solve some of the biggest challenges facing livestock agriculture. We develop plant-delivered traits that build beneficial bioactives directly into the crops animals eat every day—creating practical, scalable solutions for livestock productivity, animal health, and environmental sustainability.

Our approach brings together plant biotechnology, molecular biology, livestock science, and product development to address problems that have traditionally required supplements, additives, or other interventions. By putting solutions directly into feed and forage, we have the potential to make beneficial traits easier to deliver, more accessible to farmers, and scalable across global livestock production.

We are a science-driven, entrepreneurial team working at the intersection of agriculture, biotechnology, animal health, and sustainability. We are looking for people who want to take ownership, move quickly, work across disciplines, and help turn promising science into real-world products.

About the Role

The Plant Transformation Scientist will be responsible for transforming Elysia's traits into plants.

This is a hands-on role for a plant molecular biologist with strong expertise in plant transformation and tissue culture who is excited about applying those skills to develop new agricultural products. You will work closely with Elysia scientists to translate gene and trait concepts into transformation constructs, generate transformed plant material, develop and optimize transformation approaches, and advance promising events through molecular and phenotypic characterization.

The successful candidate will have significant ownership of Elysia's plant transformation activities and will work across a range of crop and forage species as the company's pipeline expands. This role will initially focus on establishing and optimizing transformation workflows and then applying those capabilities to deliver high-quality events for downstream testing and development.

This is an opportunity to play a foundational role in a growing biotechnology company and to see your work move from molecular design through plant development and ultimately toward products that can benefit livestock producers.

Essential Functions

Plant Transformation & Tissue Culture

• Design and execute plant transformation experiments for introduction of Elysia's candidate traits into relevant crop and forage species.

• Develop, optimize, and troubleshoot plant transformation and tissue culture protocols to improve transformation efficiency, regeneration, event quality, and reproducibility.

• Perform plant tissue culture, transformation, regeneration, selection, and recovery of transformed plants.

• Develop transformation strategies appropriate for different plant species, genotypes, and trait constructs.

• Generate and maintain high-quality transformed plant material for downstream molecular, biochemical, and phenotypic characterization.

• Manage transformed events through appropriate stages of plant development and propagation.

• Establish and maintain appropriate tissue culture and transformation workflows, protocols, records, and quality-control practices.

• Identify technical challenges and develop practical solutions to improve throughput and reliability.

Molecular Characterization

• Work with Elysia scientists to design and evaluate transformation constructs and strategies.

• Perform or coordinate molecular characterization of transformed events, including confirmation of transgene presence, copy number, expression, and/or other relevant molecular characteristics.

• Support screening and selection of events for advancement based on molecular and biological activity data.

• Maintain accurate documentation and traceability of constructs, transformation experiments, events, and plant material.

• Interpret molecular data and use results to guide subsequent transformation and development activities.

Trait & Plant Development

• Collaborate with Elysia's scientific team to translate candidate trait concepts into practical plant transformation strategies.

• Work with scientists evaluating protein, enzyme, and plant phenotypes to ensure transformed material is generated in a form suitable for downstream testing.

• Support evaluation of trait expression, stability, and performance in transformed plants.

• Contribute to the development of strategies for combining multiple traits in plants as Elysia advances its trait-stacking pipeline.

• Help determine appropriate crop, genotype, and transformation approaches for new projects.

• Advance promising plant material through successive generations and development stages.

Project Ownership

• Plan and execute multiple transformation projects simultaneously, balancing timelines, resources, and experimental priorities.

• Establish project milestones and communicate progress, results, challenges, and recommendations to the broader team.

• Maintain clear and organized experimental records and project documentation.

• Work proactively to identify bottlenecks and recommend changes to improve project timelines and outcomes.

• Contribute to decisions about which transformation approaches and plant events should advance.

• Help establish scalable systems and processes as Elysia's plant development pipeline grows.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with molecular biologists, plant scientists, genetic engineers, and other members of the Elysia team.

• Collaborate with external research partners, universities, and service providers when specialized capabilities are needed.

• Communicate technical results clearly to both scientific and non-scientific colleagues.

• Contribute to intellectual property development, including documentation supporting invention disclosures and patent filings.

• Stay current with advances in plant transformation, tissue culture, plant molecular biology, and emerging technologies relevant to Elysia's platform.

Required Education & Experience

• PhD in plant biology, plant molecular biology, molecular genetics, plant biotechnology, plant physiology, or a related field or a Master's degree with significant relevant industry experience.

• Demonstrated hands-on experience with plant transformation and tissue culture.

• Strong understanding of plant molecular biology and genetics.

• Experience with transformation, regeneration, selection, and propagation of plants.

• Experience developing or optimizing transformation protocols is required.

• Experience working with multiple crop or plant species is preferred.

• Experience with molecular characterization of transformed plants and/or transgene expression analysis.

• Strong experimental design, troubleshooting, and data interpretation skills.

• Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities while maintaining careful experimental documentation.

• Excellent communication and organizational skills.

• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively within a multidisciplinary team.

What We're Looking For

You should be a hands-on scientist who enjoys the challenge of taking a biological idea and figuring out how to successfully introduce it into a plant. You are comfortable troubleshooting transformation and tissue culture problems, developing new protocols when existing approaches don't work, and figuring out how to move a project forward when the path isn't obvious.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with curiosity, persistence, and a practical, problem-solving mindset. You don't need to know everything—but you need to be someone who will figure things out.

You'll have the opportunity to work across different crops and technologies, build new transformation capabilities, and directly contribute to Elysia's growing pipeline of plant-delivered traits.

Most importantly, you should be excited about seeing your work move beyond the laboratory and into plants that can ultimately make a meaningful difference for livestock producers and the environment.

Why Elysia

At Elysia, you will have the opportunity to apply plant biotechnology to problems that matter.

You will work on technologies designed to make livestock agriculture more productive and sustainable, while playing a key role in building the plant-based platform that makes those technologies possible.

This is an opportunity to join an entrepreneurial, science-driven team where your technical expertise will have a direct and visible impact on the company's technology and product pipeline.

If you're excited about plant transformation, enjoy solving hard technical problems, and want to see your work translated into real agricultural products, we'd love to hear from you.