Junior research scientist on plant immunity under fluctuating environment

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INRAE presentation

INRAE, the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, is a public research organization bringing together 12,000 employees across 272 units in 18 centers across France. As the world’s leading institute specializing in agriculture, food, and the environment, INRAE plays a key role in supporting the necessary transitions to address global challenges.

Faced with population growth, food security challenges, climate change, resource depletion, and biodiversity loss, INRAE is committed to developing scientific solutions and supporting the evolution of agricultural, food, and environmental practices.

INRAE is recruiting researchers by open competition and offering permanent position.

Work environment, missions and activities

You will carry out your research activity at the Laboratoire des Interactions Plantes-Microbes-Environnement (www.lipme.fr), a joint INRAE-CNRS research unit on the INRAE Occitanie-Toulouse campus. The LIPME brings together nearly 150 people organized into 13 research teams, and benefits from a scientific framework favouring interactions with several plant biology and ecology laboratories in the Toulouse area. You will be joining the QIP “Quantitative Plant Immunity” team (www.qiplab.weebly.com), which studies the molecular dialogue between pathogenic fungi and their host plants. Current climate change is characterized by more unstable weather conditions. Repeated variations (fluctuations) in the environment are responsible for priming, desensitization, and interference phenomena that modify the ability of plants to defend themselves against pathogens, increasing the incidence of disease. To date, few environmental fluctuations have been studied for their effect on plant immunity, and the underlying molecular basis is largely unknown. You will explore the effects of fluctuating abiotic environmental parameters on plant immune responses at phenotypic and molecular levels in laboratory conditions. You will build a project to identify the genetic basis of plant somatic memory through which environmental conditions durably affect cellular physiology and the associated immune responses. You will study the nature, regulation, diversity, and mode of action of the genes involved to understand how plants adapt to environmental fluctuations. The “quantitative plant immunity” team has preliminary results from the INRAE SumCrop metaprogramme (https://sumcrop.hub.inrae.fr/) on the effect of daily fluctuations in temperature and wind on the immune response of the model plant Arabidopsis, which you will use to initiate the project. This research will be conducted with the pathogenic fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, capable of infecting many dicotyledonous plants, enabling you to extend your work to models of agronomic interest. You will draw on your skills in plant genetics and pathology, molecular biology and omics data analysis. The study of plant immune mechanisms in response to environmental perturbations carried out in this project will ultimately contribute to the improvement of plant health and its adaptation to new environmental challenges.

Training and skills

Competition open to candidates with a PhD (or equivalent). Skills in plant pathology, molecular biology, and plant genetics would be strongly recommended. Knowledge of transcriptomics and biostatistics would be desirable. Familiarity with multidisciplinary research, particularly involving cell biology, epigenetics and/or quantitative biology, would be an advantage. Candidates should have a good command of English (both written and spoken), and long-term international experience would also be desirable. Successful candidates who have not yet acquired this experience abroad will be required to do so after their probationary period (1st year).

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from:

- 30 days of annual leave + 15 days "Reduction of Working Time" (for a full time);
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering.

For international scientists: please visit your guide to facilitate your arrival and stay at INRAE. 

How to apply

1. I download the applicant guide Application guidelines CRCN 2025 pdf - 3.93 MB
2. I write down the profile number CR-2025-SPE-5
3. I apply GO