PopVax is an Indian full-stack biotechnology company developing novel mRNA vaccines and therapeutics using computational protein design. Our first vaccine is a next-generation COVID-19 booster which will enter a first-in-human Phase I clinical trial in the U.S. early next year – this vaccine is intended to broaden protection against both current and predicted future SARS-CoV-2 variants, reducing the possibility of a new mutation in the virus suddenly causing another massive wave of infection. We have a preclinical pipeline of 6 additional novel vaccine candidates built on our mRNA-LNP platform that we will be taking into clinical trials over the next few years. Our work to date has been funded primarily via project agreements totalling 10+ million USD with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Vitalik Buterin's public health & biosecurity organization Balvi.

We are looking for an exceptional molecular and cell biologist to work on our wet lab team across a number of projects, from mRNA IVT to stable cell line generation and maintenance to mAb production.

QUALIFICATIONS

• PhD in molecular or cell biology or similar, or a masters degree in a relevant field with 3+ years of additional experience

• Experiece with DNA and RNA extraction

• Experience with plasmid extraction at various scales

• Experience with vector transformation in DH5-Alpha or similar bacterial strains

• Extensive experience with PCR techniques — inverse, touch down/up, gradient, long amplicons, difficult targets, Taq man, Realtime PCR

• Extensive experience with cloning methods — cut and paste, Gibson assembly, Gateway, In-Fusion

• Extensive experience handling, maintaining, and stocking various cell lines, in particular HEK 293T, HeLa, and MCF-7, as well as suspension cell lines such as the Expi and FreeStyle series

• Experience performing transfection, both chemical and electroporation, at various scales

• Experience with achieving protein expression in bacteria, yeast, insect, and mammalian cells, and (optionally) protein separation and purification

• Experience performing protein estimation assays such as Bradford, BCA, or ELISA

• Experience estimating relative protein expression via Western blot

• Experience with FPLC systems such as Cytiva’s Akta series or Bio-Rad’s NGC line is a plus

We offer very competitive compensation, comprehensive health insurance covering immediate family (including pre-existing conditions), and, most importantly, a collaborative work environment focused on solving the cutting-edge multidisciplinary challenges of our novel mRNA platform.