Biosecurity & clinical development @ PopVax | views are my own https://xitter.cf/t.co/OUImYWcpQz
Joined May 2026
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Hannah Herzig retweeted
The thing I always loved most about @restofworld articles was the focus on the ordinary people behind the global tech headlines.
Incredible storytelling over the years.
Re-sharing one of my all-time favorites from @violazhouyi and @NilChristopher: restofworld.org/2023/foxconn…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
This is playing with fire.
Minks and ferrets have such humanlike lung cells that they’re the standard for testing human flu transmission. (Cows aren’t!)
An H5N1 epidemic raging in a mink farm is basically the plot for Dr. Evil tries to spark a pandemic. Luck isn’t a plan.
Here’s something you should know about minks:
They have lungs and airways remarkably similar on a cellular level to those of people.
They’ve spread flus and infected humans before with COVID-19.
Right now, bird flu is spreading on a Utah farm filled with thousands of them… 🧵
ALT A close-up view of a white mink with red eyes and a pink nose baring its teeth and hissing, emerging from under a dark enclosure.
Hannah Herzig retweeted
I’m seeing a lot of uninformed takes, like this one, about cell simulation feasibility. I wanted to contribute some facts.
Alphafold works for predicting a subset of static structures (not how a protein structure changes shape under forces) on 1) well-ordered regions (not intrinsically disordered regions or long flexible loops) and 2) on proteins with plenty of evolutionary relatives (no orphan proteins).
Alphafold solved this subset of static structure prediction with a dataset that took 50 years (PDB; 1971 to ~2020) to collect. It did not solve protein dynamics or how proteins fold into their shapes. Those remain unsolved.
Cell simulation is vastly more complex and data hungry than any of this. Exact cell simulation means solving quantum equations for every atom and is totally intractable. But all approximations rely on - and are bottlenecked by - data, not compute.
So the extrapolation from “alphafold worked” to “therefore cell simulation is feasible” assumes far too much.
If you had an exponential amount of compute you could solve simulate biology exactly and wouldn't need to run any experiments.
Some of you will think "of course, but that's an unrealistic assumption" and others will think "no, you need experiments even with that much compute. That's just How It's Done".
You would of course need evaluations once you have a solution, but you don't in principle need experiments to find it: Experiments are a way to save compute, dating from a time when it was much more expensive.
And I think the presentation is exponential but real systems aren't irreducibly exponential. AlphaFold worked, after all.
Hannah Herzig retweeted
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.
On August 31, the first two participants were injected with @PopVaxIndia’s first fridge-stable RNA vaccine candidate in a Phase I clinical trial in Australia. We built this vaccine at our RNA Foundry in Hyderabad – from computational design to GMP manufacturing. Here's how:
Hannah Herzig retweeted
This is exactly what @hcherzig and I are working on @PopVaxIndia across the UK, the US, and India!
Read more here: chronicles.popvax.com/p/apoc…
In my lab, we use AI to discover new antibiotics and other medical countermeasures. But the same technologies could also make it easier to create biological threats.
In my @washingtonpost op-ed, I argue that U.S. biodefense must keep pace with AI. Building the capacity to protect people takes years. We cannot afford to wait for a crisis.
Read: washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
P.S. AI protein design gets the headlines. Whether the thing in the tube is actually what you designed gets decided by analytical methods. My team at @PopVaxIndia is hiring an analytical scientist for protein characterisation (SEC-HPLC) jobs.popvax.com/41532
On August 31, the first two participants were injected with @PopVaxIndia’s first fridge-stable RNA vaccine candidate in a Phase I clinical trial in Australia. We built this vaccine at our RNA Foundry in Hyderabad – from computational design to GMP manufacturing. Here's how:
Hannah Herzig retweeted
Pfizer's original COVID vaccine needed a freezer at about -70C, which many clinics do not have. On August 31, the first volunteers in Melbourne got an mRNA vaccine that stays stable for at least 9 months in an ordinary fridge.
It was built by @PopVaxIndia, a Hyderabad team that started in late 2021 in a shared lab smaller than a parking spot and now designs vaccines with AI.
The shot delivers mRNA instructions in a tiny fat bubble. Your cells read them and build a harmless fake virus, a ball covered in copies of the coronavirus spike tip. Immune cells react far more strongly to many copies packed together, and in mice the ball produced over 50x the virus-blocking antibodies of the spike tip alone.
The mouse and fridge results come straight from PopVax and have not been peer-reviewed. The trial in 36 volunteers is testing safety.
Gene editing and CAR-T, which reprograms immune cells to attack disease, already reach patients in trials inside the same kind of fat bubble. A small team in India building its own is how those medicines reach people outside rich countries.
Huge congrats @sohamsankaran and team. Watch the film.
On August 31, the first two participants were injected with @PopVaxIndia’s first fridge-stable RNA vaccine candidate in a Phase I clinical trial in Australia. We built this vaccine at our RNA Foundry in Hyderabad – from computational design to GMP manufacturing. Here's how:
Hannah Herzig retweeted
Just so people understand the significance of this news from India (because Hyderabad-based PopVax is a company you should be tracking):
Many mRNA COVID vaccines out there have two flaws: 1. They need very cold freezers to stay potent, and 2. They stop being effective when the virus mutates.
PopVax made a COVID mRNA vaccine that can stay in a normal fridge for months without expiring, and it's designed to remain effective even when the virus changes.
Their vaccine (PVX-001) was entirely designed and manufactured in India, and they plan to open source the design so that other teams can build on their work.
After these human trials, PopVax will replicate their methodology across other vaccines + cancer therapies. Their goal is to leverage AI to make vaccines/therapies which are faster and cheaper to produce, more resilient, and more effective than anything else out there.
On August 31, the first two participants were injected with @PopVaxIndia’s first fridge-stable RNA vaccine candidate in a Phase I clinical trial in Australia. We built this vaccine at our RNA Foundry in Hyderabad – from computational design to GMP manufacturing. Here's how:
Hannah Herzig retweeted
I am hiring a talented and tasteful full-stack filmmaker for a three-month fellowship @PopVaxIndia, full-time in Hyderabad, to help the world imagine what the future of medicine will look like in our new world of abundant intelligence. We think medicine will be increasingly personalized and preventative, and the mechanics of healthcare will have to be entirely transformed to make that possible. A lot of this will look more like making science fiction than producing launch videos, though there will be some of that as well.
I'm looking for someone who is as comfortable shooting and editing a short film entirely in real life as they are generating it entirely with AI, with the ability to seamlessly embed the one medium in the other. If this is you, email me at film [at] popvax dot com with a few samples, ideally both writing and video. This is a paid position, and it has the potential (but not the requirement) to convert to a long-term role if there is mutual alignment.
My brother @SahajSankaran and I write and direct a little on the side -- see youtube.com/@honestyontape -- so, for better or worse, I will be quite opinionated about what we put out. If this goes well, it will be a deep and fulfilling collaboration on all aspects of the creative process, from the writing to the final cut.
I should have done this a long time ago (many such cases). This will be a lot of fun!
@pbshgthm @ashleevance @oshosidhant
@anupamsidhant @pavlikam @ABiggerSpalash @neervj @neilshroff @sidin
Hannah Herzig retweeted
"If you have ever used AI to fix your washing machine, you understand the difference between reading a manual and having a tutor by your side... The same distinction matters for biological research at the laboratory bench."
@ATabarrok @hcherzig
marginalrevolution.com/margi…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
Five cases that Anthropic caught is great.
We won't get five more warnings before something bad happens
Here's the link to the original report:
anthropic.com/threat-intelli…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
PopVax has been building the bold new face of biotech in India, with the gumption to iterate at a pace that’s rare anywhere.
Excited to see this video finally out, and thrilled to be carrying our vision forward!
PopVax aims to develop novel vaccines and therapeutics that can save 1M lives/year.
They're doing this in Hyderabad. Not SF or Boston or Geneva or Paris or even Bengaluru.
Their aspirations are enormous. They're not interested in competing with leading teams in the West. They plan to overtake them instead. How will they do this? By recognising and capitalising on the inherent and untapped advantages of building biotech in India.
India is a country of enormous scientific talent.
India is a country where operating costs are low.
India is a country where R&D money goes further.
India is a country of many people and many diseases.
PopVax intends to leapfrog Merck, Pfizer, and GSK.
There's a biotech revolution happening in Hyderabad, and it's going to change the world.
Hannah Herzig retweeted
PopVax (@PopVaxIndia) is one of India’s most important biotech startups.
They're developing vaccines to fight Hep C, Strep A, TB, influenza, HPV, and malaria, as well as cancer immunotherapies against tumours like liver/pancreatic cancer.
Here's their RNA Foundry in Hyderabad.
Hannah Herzig retweeted
We are excited to open applications for a biosecurity cohort of @RenPhilanthropy's Big if True Science (BiTS) Accelerator, with support from @coeff_giving.
We want to train a new generation of biosecurity R&D leaders.
renaissancephilanthropy.org/…
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Hannah Herzig retweeted
My team @PopVaxIndia is co-hosting a small dinner with @ARIA_research, the UK's moonshot research funding agency, at our Hyderabad lab on 22 August. They're hiring new Programme Directors!
If you're obsessed with an audacious scientific or technological direction that is plausible but hasn’t been seriously tried before, come give an informal chalk talk about how you'd spend £50M over 3 years funding projects to go after it.
luma.com/y2j7kbit
Hannah Herzig retweeted
If you wish to Monitor The Situation, you gotta be reading the preprints and blogs
this came out almost a year ago: biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Asimov Press covered it in depth: press.asimov.com/articles/ai…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
The Asia Centre for Health Security's 12-month, part-time fellowship is open for applications: asia-chs.org/fellowship-prog… Apply by August 31.
Hannah Herzig retweeted
We at @PopVaxIndia are excited to partner with @AnthropicAI as part of their AI for Science program to accelerate our generative AI-powered design pipelines for new medicines, including our TB, Hep C, and Strep A vaccines, as well our cancer therapies.
ndtv.com/india-news/anthropi…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
Last week, the Center’s Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity (#ELBI) Fellowship convened for its Research Symposium.
The collaboration and innovation sparked by this meeting will enable us to address some of the most difficult #biosecurity challenges.
centerforhealthsecurity.org/…
Hannah Herzig retweeted
Great to see mainstream media attention on this issue!
"AI chatbots know how to make deadly poisons and biological weapons. They’re trained to keep mum, but some will share recipes if you keep asking. No federal law forbids this."
wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-chatb… via @WSJ