Karthic A (He/Him)

We’re making a personalized cancer vaccine for Yash, a 34 year-old pancreatic cancer patient, in the open with his consent. We want external experts to review our design and make their own contributions before we manufacture it at the RNA Foundry. RNAFoundry.com/yash

Beware of those who peddle more bureaucracy as a solution to the problems of Indian biotech. More consortia, panels & committees aren't going to solve anything -- we need policy changes & streamlined funding to empower individual institutions, companies, and scientists to do R&D! Some simple first steps from the startup side: -- Faster imports with lower duties for critical reagents and equipment; establish a fast track like China has -- Removal of burdensome paperwork and approvals (including the need for a physical PAN card) that make it nearly impossible for foreign investors to put small cheques into Indian-incorporated companies -- Government funding for startups of INR 10-50 crore per R&D project without the need for matching funds or payback; the new RDI Fund requires at least 50% matching, which small startups typically cannot provide -- Faster Phase I clinical trial approvals for innovative new medicines, and the establishment of rapid compassionate-use and named-patient pathways to open up access to experimental medicines for patients who have exhausted existing treatment options

We're also hiring to scale this up! PopVax.com/jobs

Email cancer@rnafoundry.com if you're interested in working with us.

Launching RNAFoundry.com – we manufacture personalized cancer vaccines.

Working on the vaccines part of this @PopVaxIndia supported in large part by Vitalik and Balvi, and would strongly recommend others jump in and work in all of these areas as well!

Very excited to report that Mint has published an in-depth profile of our work @PopVaxIndia as part of @_jesthetic's wonderful new biotech series "Lab Rats". Read it here: livemint.com/companies/start… Looking forward to future installments! (1/2)

Siddhant is both brilliant and uncommonly kind! He is a key full-stack biologist @PopVaxIndia, working fluidly across design, wet lab experimentation, bioanalytical methods, data analysis, and software infrastructure. We are hiring a passionate & rigorous scientist for his team!

PopVax's first vaccine entered a Phase I clinical trial on August 31. We're following this up with an ambitious pipeline of vaccines (HCV, TB, Strep A, rabies) and cancer therapeutics (liver & pancreatic cancer). Come help us develop new medicines to save 1 million lives each year! Here are some key open positions: Principal Scientist - Analytical Method Development (jobs.popvax.com/30208) and Senior Scientist - HPLC Method Development (jobs.popvax.com/41508): We design millions of new molecules – proteins, RNA, LNPs, and more. Your job is to figure out how to characterize them at high-throughput without sacrificing rigour, repeatability, and robustness, as well as to help make those methods GMP-grade as part of the handover to QC. We intend to take new medicines into clinical trials in weeks, not years, so we need to build adaptable analytical platforms, not bespoke methods that work for only one molecule. We strongly prefer candidates with the ability to write code to build automated data analysis pipelines for their methods – LLM-generated code is fine as long as you are able to comprehensively validate the logic and output of the pipelines. Head of Quality Control (jobs.popvax.com/41525) – We manufacture our own clinical doses at the RNA Foundry, and every analytical method we develop for a new molecule eventually has to become a validated QC method. You’ll lead the team that tests every batch to international GMP standards, take on method transfers from analytical development, and build a QC function that can keep pace with a pipeline aiming to reach the clinic in weeks, not years. Junior Scientist - Vaccine Immunology (jobs.popvax.com/37003) – Our vaccine programs halt or advance on the immunogenicity data that comes back from animal and organoid studies. You’ll run the assays that produce that data – ELISAs, pseudovirus neutralization, and bacterial growth-inhibition assays – and coordinate animal studies with our internal teams and CROs, following each study from plan to samples to result. We prefer candidates who can write code for routine data analysis. Head of Legal (jobs.popvax.com/41524) – Our first vaccine was manufactured in India, was filled into vials in the US, and has now entered a clinical trial in Australia. We work with dozens of counterparties – funders, governments, universities, CROs, and suppliers – with more added each week. You’ll own the day-to-day of our Indian legal work, from contracts to compliance to labour law, work with the legal teams supporting our UK and Australian operations, and make sure paperwork is never the bottleneck between our new medicines and the clinic. Chief of Staff to the Chief Science Officer: Our CSO needs a partner who can take experimental planning and coordination off his plate so that he can spend more time thinking hard about our thorniest problems. You will turn complex scientific hypotheses into clear executable plans, coordinate with scientists to see each experiment through, and analyze the data to help plan the next round of iteration. You’ll need a strong scientific background, a sharp eye for detail, and boundless energy to keep ambitious scientific work moving. To apply, email dhruv [at] popvax [dot] com with a human-written explanation of why you’re the best person for the job. If none of these are a good fit, take a look popvax.com/jobs or email us at work [at] popvax [dot] com.

PVX-001 is a broadly-protective COVID-19 vaccine candidate intended to maintain efficacy against new variants of SARS-CoV-2 as the virus mutates. It is built on our RNA-encoded VLP architecture to elicit a broad & potent immune response. Read more here: chronicles.popvax.com/p/popv…