Junior Scientist/Scientist Protein & RNA Design

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 this 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 organisation Balvi.

As our first program moves into the clinic, we are beginning preclinical work on a variety of novel mRNA vaccines and therapeutics in parallel.

As such, we are seeking a highly motivated and detail-oriented researcher to join our Computational Design Team as a Junior Scientist/Scientist Protein & RNA Design to design broadly effective next-generation vaccines and therapeutics.

This is a unique opportunity to operate on the frontier of our understanding of the physiological impact of cutting-edge protein design and nucleic acid modalities.

This position reports to the VP of Protein Design.

Key Responsibilities Will Include.

Literature review, including locating and summarizing the latest research in fields of interest, retrieving specific papers or other peer-reviewed sources, and, when required, formulating recommendations on the applicability of this research to PopVaxs projects.

Identify data sources and execute new project ideas into a quick-working prototype.

Provide high-level scientific expertise for new research projects, contributing to all phases of a project.

Analyse and interpret challenging clinical and non-clinical data.

Keeping up-to-date on best practices and latest developments in vaccine design.

Produce high-quality and detailed documentation for all projects in a structured manner.

Assist senior team members in antigen selection and design for eliciting broad immune response.

Assist senior team members in designing and optimising mRNA sequence for stability and efficient and accurate translation for a given protein sequence.

The Ideal Candidate Will Also Have.

Masters in Bioinformatics or a related field with experience in structural (protein) bioinformatics is required for junior scientists.

PhD or 4+ years of industrial experience are required for the Scientist position.

Excellent literature search and reviewing skills.

Experience in protein structure modelling and visualization.

Experience in protein-protein docking.

Experience in molecular dynamics simulation.

Experience analyzing raw data from next-generation sequencing data.

Knowledge of central dogma and translation regulation.

Proficiency in working in LINUX environment and in at least one of the standard scientific programming languages like Python or R.

Knowledge of biological databases and basic bioinformatics tools such as BLAST, Multiple Sequence Alignment, etc.

Basic knowledge of immunology.

Working understanding of machine learning tools.

Comfortable in working as a team and capable of working independently.

Yes I can attitude.