PopVax is an Indian full-stack biotech building first-in-class and best-in-class vaccines and cancer immunotherapies using machine learning-driven protein design and relentless empiricism. We design, develop, and manufacture our own RNA medicines end-to-end because we believe great pharmaceutical science can only flourish in tight feedback loops that iterate rapidly. PopVax’s experimental work and clinical dose production is based at the RNA Foundry, our integrated R&D and GMP-capable clinical dose production facility in Hyderabad.

PopVax's north star is our goal of developing novel vaccines and therapeutics over the next decade with the cumulative ability to save 1 million lives each year – the Million Lives Mission. To that end, we are developing first-in-class vaccines against Hepatitis C, Strep A, and adult pulmonary TB; broadly-protective best-in-class vaccines against COVID-19, influenza, malaria, and HPV; and precision immunotherapies against hard-to-treat solid tumours such as liver cancer and pancreatic cancer. Beyond existing diseases, we are leveraging our high-speed platform to build rapid-response biosecurity capabilities against engineered de novo pathogens.

Our mission is funded by Vitalik Buterin’s Balvi Fund, the Gates Foundation, the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Renaissance Philanthropy, and Good Ventures, with individual investments from Enveda founder Viswa Colluru and Tesla self-driving AI pioneer Dhaval Shroff. Our first program, an open-source broadly-protective COVID-19 vaccine, will begin a Phase I clinical trial in Australia in mid-2026. This is just the start – we intend to advance 6+ novel vaccine and immunotherapy programs into human clinical trials over the next three years, decisively demonstrating that world-class biotech R&D is possible in India. 

No matter the job title, each person’s role at PopVax is ultimately about helping bring safe, effective new medicines that represent a step-change over the current standard-of-care to the people who need them, as quickly as possible. If you are looking for a place where the ambition is high, the learning curve is steep, and the work matters to billions, you’ll feel at home here.

If you’re excited by the idea of advancing scientific, clinical, and regulatory frontiers of vaccines and immunotherapies, spending each day developing medicines with the potential to save millions of lives, and building a generational global pharmaceutical company in India along the way – join us!

Role Overview

There is a particular kind of experiment that defines whether an mRNA vaccine program lives or dies, and it happens long before a vial ever reaches a patient’s arm. It happens in the design of the construct itself — the sequence of choices, from promoter architecture to UTR engineering to cap analog selection to IVT template design, that determines whether the mRNA you eventually produce is potent, stable, manufacturable, and actually encodes what you intended it to encode.

At PopVax, we are running over six vaccine and immunotherapy programs simultaneously. We are designing novel immunogens using computational protein design, building self-amplifying and trans-amplifying RNA architectures for programs where standard mRNA isn't enough, manufacturing our own clinical doses at the RNA Foundry, and preparing for a Phase I trial in Australia.

The molecular biology underpinning all of it: cloning, the IVT template design, the RNA analytics, the construct verification has to be excellent. Rigorous, fast, well-documented, and tightly coupled to the computational design and manufacturing teams that depend on it.

Right now, that function needs a leader. Someone who can own the end-to-end molecular biology operation at PopVax — designing constructs, running the analytical pipeline, mentoring the team, and ensuring that what comes out of the molecular biology lab is something we can trust all the way to the clinic.

That someone is our Principal Scientist – Molecular Biology.

What You'll Actually Do

You will own molecular biology at PopVax. That means everything from vector design through cloning through IVT template optimisation through RNA analytics — and it means owning it with the kind of rigour and speed that a company running six programs in parallel actually requires.

This is not a role where you execute someone else's protocols. You will be the person who decides how constructs get designed, how the cloning strategy gets chosen, how the RNA analytics pipeline gets built, and how molecular biology results get translated into decisions that drive the vaccine and immunotherapy programs forward. You will work in close collaboration with the Protein Design, Computational Biology, Formulation and GMP Manufacturing teams because it is through this pipeline that constructs eventually become clinical doses. The molecular biology function is the connective tissue between in-silico design and physical product, and you will be the person who makes that translation fast, accurate, and reliable.

More specifically, you will:

1. Lead construct design and cloning from first principles. You'll oversee the full workflow of vector design, cloning, mutagenesis, and sequence verification for vaccine and immunotherapy constructs across all PopVax programs. This includes designing IVT templates optimised for mRNA production. When a computational design team member sends you a novel sequence, you'll know what to do with it and how to get it into a form that can be transcribed, purified, and tested — without losing fidelity at any step.

2. Own the analytical pipeline for RNA characterisation. You'll establish and manage the analytical systems that tell the team whether an mRNA construct is what it's supposed to be: RNA integrity assays, cap structure validation, modification profiling, and NGS-based sequence verification using both Illumina and Nanopore platforms. The outputs of this pipeline feed directly into manufacturing decisions, QC release criteria, and regulatory submissions so the data has to be right, and the pipeline robust enough to run across multiple programs without becoming a bottleneck.

3. Build and lead the molecular biology team. You'll supervise and mentor the molecular biologists on your team, set priorities across multiple programs, and build the kind of disciplined, high-throughput operation that can serve a six-program pipeline without letting any single program fall behind. You'll also maintain rigorous documentation of all designs, constructs, experimental results, and analytical data.

4. Contribute to scientific strategy and IP. You'll be a scientific voice in program-level decisions, contributing to publications and to the development of PopVax's intellectual property in RNA construct design and optimisation.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Synthetic Biology, or related field with 6+ years of relevant industry experience.

• Proven record of leading molecular design and cloning efforts for mRNA vaccines, biologics, or gene therapy products.

• Deep hands-on expertise in:

  • PCR, Gibson Assembly, Golden Gate, and other advanced cloning methods

  • Plasmid and IVT template design for mRNA production

  • Self-amplifying and trans-amplifying RNA systems (SAM/TAM)

  • In-vitro transcription, RNA purification, and cap analog optimisation

  • Next-generation sequencing (Illumina/Nanopore) for construct verification and QC

  • Analytical assays (RT-qPCR, fragment analysis, RNA yield, stability, and modification profiling)

  • Familiarity with automation platforms (OpenTrons, Tecan) is a plus

• Strong leadership, project management, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

We offer a chance to help build the future of pharmaceutical R&D from India with access to state-of-the-art lab infrastructure and an exceptional talent base iterating on vaccine and therapeutic targets, modalities, designs, and manufacturing processes at breakneck speed. At the same time, you will avail competitive compensation, comprehensive health insurance with the option to cover immediate family (including pre-existing conditions).