Analytical Scientist – Protein Characterisation (SEC-HPLC / SEC-MALS)

PopVax; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Relocation assistance

Health insurance

Family health cover

24x7 doctor access

Job summary

PopVax, Hyderabad-based biotech, seeks a skilled analytical chemist to design and validate SEC‑HPLC methods for de novo proteins. You will quantify monomer, aggregates and fragments, and apply SEC-MALS to confirm molecular weight and oligomeric state.

You will adapt methods from literature and write reproducible protocols for team use. You will also develop orthogonal methods (RP, IEX, HIC) with UV/PDA/CAD detectors and analyse raw data in Python or R, collaborating with design and process teams

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience developing or validating HPLC/UHPLC/UPLC methods for proteins or biomolecules.
• Practical SEC experience for biologics: mobile phase, column selection, resolving aggregates.
• Record of adapting methods from publications to new molecules and writing reproducible protocols.
• Comfort analysing instrument data in Python or R, including reading code generated by LLMs.

Responsibilities

• Develop, optimise and maintain SEC-HPLC methods for monomer, aggregate and fragment quantitation.
• Establish SEC-MALS for molecular weight, oligomeric state and aggregation.
• Develop orthogonal methods (RP, IEX, HIC) with appropriate detectors and run-time efficiency.
• Write clear analytical protocols and update them with method changes.
• Export raw data and analyse it in Python or R; verify results against raw data.

Skills

HPLC Method Dev

SEC/SEC-MALS

Python

R programming

Biomolecule analysis

GMP awareness

Education

Master's or PhD in Analytical Chemistry

Tools

HPLC/UHPLC

LC-MS

SEC-MALS

Job description

About PopVax

PopVax is a clinical-stage, Indian full-stack biotech using generative AI to build first-in-class and best-in-class vaccines for infectious diseases, targeted cancer therapeutics, and personalized autoimmune therapies.

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.

We conduct our R&D work and GMP manufacturing at our integrated RNA Foundry in Hyderabad, India, in support of our Million Lives Mission to develop vaccines and therapeutics over the next decade with the potential to cumulatively save 1 million lives each year.

Our pipeline includes a broadly-protective COVID-19 vaccine, currently in a Phase I trial in Australia, first-in-class vaccines against Hepatitis C, Strep A and adult TB, as well as precision cancer therapies against pancreatic and liver cancer. We intend to take at least 5 novel vaccine and therapeutic candidates into clinical trials over the next two years.

About the Role

We design de novo cancer therapeutics computationally, the protein does not exist until we express and purify it. A design that looks perfect in silico may emerge as a clean monomer, a dimer, an aggregate, or several species that co-elute. Your job is to tell us what we actually made.

SEC-HPLC will be your starting point. You will develop methods that distinguish monomer from aggregates and fragments, quantify each species reliably, and help us understand whether a molecule is behaving as designed. Where SEC alone cannot answer the question, you will use SEC-MALS, orthogonal separations such as RP, IEX and HIC, and LC-MS.

Many of the methods we need were developed for other molecules – usually well-behaved monoclonal antibodies – and exist only in academic papers or application notes. You will adapt them to de novo-designed proteins, establish the controls that show they work, and write protocols another scientist can reproduce.

The instrument report will not always contain the answer. When a result raises a new question, you will go back to the raw chromatographic data and investigate it using Python or R. We use LLM coding assistants as everyday scientific tools, so we expect you to be comfortable reviewing generated code, checking every calculation against the underlying data, and automating repetitive analysis rather than performing it by hand each time.

You will work closely with our protein design, expression, purification and process development teams. The results from your methods will feed directly into decisions about which molecules we make next.

This role is based on-site at our RNA Foundry in Hyderabad.

Responsibilities

• Develop, optimise and maintain SEC-HPLC methods for recombinant and de novo designed proteins for monomer purity, aggregate and fragment quantitation.
• Establish SEC-MALS for absolute molecular weight, oligomeric state and aggregate characterisation.
• Develop orthogonal methods: RP, IEX, HIC, and UHPLC/UPLC where resolution or run time demands it, using UV, PDA, ELSD and CAD detection as the molecule requires.
• Adapt methods from academic and industry publications to our molecules, with the controls that show they transferred.
• Write a clear analytical protocol for each method, and update it every time the method changes.
• Export raw chromatographic data and analyse it in Python or R, as scripts or notebooks a colleague can rerun.
• Check every surprising peak, drifting baseline or LLM-generated calculation against the raw data before it becomes a number in a report.
• Get assay results into our shared database, working with the computational team that builds our automated QC tooling.
• Work with the protein design, expression, purification and process development teams, and with external partners, on the samples your methods test. Your results feed directly back into which designs we make next.

Minimum Qualifications

• Hands-on experience developing or validating HPLC, UHPLC or UPLC methods for proteins or other biomolecules, with a range of detectors (ideally UV, PDA, ELSD and CAD).
• Practical SEC experience for biologics: mobile phase and column selection, resolving aggregate from monomer, and recognising when a peak is a column artefact rather than the sample.
• A record of adapting methods from publications to new molecules, and of writing protocols another scientist can follow.
• Comfort analysing instrument data in Python or R, including reading and checking code an LLM has written.
• A master's degree or PhD in Analytical Chemistry, Biochemistry or a related field, with at least 2 years of analytical method development experience, preferably with biologics. Recent PhDs without industry experience are welcome to apply.

Preferred Qualifications

Nobody is expected to have all of these.

• Experience with SEC-MALS or another biophysical method for measuring size and aggregation, such as dynamic light scattering or mass photometry.
• Experience characterising engineered, de novo-designed or other non-natural proteins.
• LC-MS experience with biomolecules, including intact-mass analysis, peptide mapping or LC-MS/MS.
• Experience with multiple detector types, particularly UV, PDA, ELSD or CAD.
• Experience taking analytical methods into controlled or GMP use, including method qualification, validation or transfer.
• Familiarity with Good Documentation Practices, instrument qualification, cGMP-ready SOPs and STPs, compendial methods or stability studies.
• Experience using Git or GitHub for scientific analysis.
• Experience with laboratory automation platforms such as Opentrons, Hamilton or Tecan.
• Experience using LLMs for scientific work, together with a clear understanding of where their outputs can fail.

Pay and Benefits

We pay in the top 1% for comparable roles in India, and your exact salary will depend on your skills, experience and qualifications. You'll also receive stock options, and we'll help you relocate to Hyderabad. Our comprehensive health insurance covers you, your spouse and your children, including pre-existing conditions, and you can add your parents. You'll also get accidental and term insurance, and free access to doctors 24x7.