Swastik Phulera

Swastik Phulera is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Life Sciences, Mahindra University. His research uses structural and biophysical approaches to investigate membrane proteins and the molecular mechanisms underlying disease, with interests spanning autoimmune diseases, voltage-gated ion channels and their modulators, and biotherapeutics. He brings experience in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), X-ray crystallography, protein expression and purification, antibody characterisation, and AI-assisted structural biology and protein design.

Before joining Mahindra University in September 2026, he was a Staff Scientist at Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA (2024–2026) and a Senior Scientist at Initium Therapeutics, Natick, MA (2022–2024). Prior to this he held positions at Novartis (2019–2022) and the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (2017–2019). His work has included structural studies of HIV envelope glycoprotein–antibody complexes, voltage-gated sodium channels, and the GABAA receptor, as well as antibody engineering and membrane-protein research. He earned a Ph.D. from the National Centre for Cell Science in 2017 and an MSc in Biotechnology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2010.

• 2017 — Ph.D., National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India
  • Dissertation: Structure function studies on redox related proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
  • Supervisor: Shekhar C. Mande
• 2010 — M.Sc. Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
  • Dissertation: Principal Component Ordination for ABC transporter Superfamily.
  • Supervisor: Devapriya Choudhury
• 2008 — B.Sc. (Hons) Biomedical Science, University of Delhi

Research Articles

• Steichen JM, Madden PJ, Flynn CT, Phulera S, …, Schief W. Vaccination elicits HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies in primates. Nature. 2026;656:723–733. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10837-5.
• Guenaga J*, Adori M*, Bale S*, Phulera S*, Zygouras I, Schleich F, Dopico XC, Agrawal S, Ota M, Wilson R, Cluff J, Dzvelaia T, Mandolesi M, Walsh A, Melo M, Verkoczy L, Irvine D, Corcoran M, Wilson IA, Carnathan DG, Silvestri G, Ward A, Ozorowski G, Hedestam GBK, Wyatt RT. Vaccination generates broadly cross-neutralizing antibodies to the HIV Env apex. Nature. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10429-3. (*equal first authors)
• Rantalainen K, …, Phulera S, et al. Virus glycoprotein nanodisc platform for vaccine analytics. Nature Communications. 2026 Feb 10. doi:10.1038/s41467-026-68985-1.
• Caniels TG, Prabhakaran M, …, Phulera S, et al. Precise targeting of HIV broadly neutralizing antibody precursors in humans. Science. 2025;389:eadv5572. doi:10.1126/science.adv5572.
• Willis RJ, Prabhakaran M, …, Phulera S, et al. Vaccination with mRNA-encoded nanoparticles drives early maturation of HIV bnAb precursors in humans. Science. 2025;389:eadr8382. doi:10.1126/science.adr8382.
• Phulera S, Dickson CJ, Schwalen CJ, et al. Scorpion α-toxin LqhαIT specifically interacts with a glycan at the pore domain of voltage-gated sodium channels. Structure. 2024 Aug. doi:10.1016/j.str.2024.07.021.
• Schwalen CJ, Babu C, Phulera S, Hao Q, Wall D, Nettleton DO, Pathak TP, Siuti P. Scalable Biosynthetic Production of Knotted Peptides Enables ADME and Thermodynamic Folding Studies. ACS Omega. 2021;6(44):29555–29566. doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c03707.
• Kumar A, Phulera S, Rizvi A, Sonawane PJ, Panwar HS, Banerjee S, Sahu A, Mande SC. Structural basis of hypoxic gene regulation by the Rv0081 transcription factor of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. FEBS Letters. 2019;593:982–995. doi:10.1002/1873-3468.13375.
• Phulera S, Zhu H, Yu J, Claxton DP, Yoder N, Yoshioka C, Gouaux E. Cryo-EM structure of the benzodiazepine-sensitive α1β1γ2S tri-heteromeric GABAA receptor in complex with GABA. eLife. 2018;7:e39383. doi:10.7554/eLife.39383.
• Kumar J, Yadav VN, Phulera S, Kamble A, Kumar GA, Panwar HS, Sahu A. Species specificity of vaccinia virus complement control protein towards bovine classical pathway is governed primarily by direct interaction of its acidic residues with factor I. Journal of Virology. 2017;91:e00668-17. doi:10.1128/JVI.00668-17.
• Agarwal S, Sharma V, Phulera S, Abdin MZ, Ayana R, Singh S. Structural insights into a key carotenogenesis related enzyme phytoene synthase of P. falciparum: a novel drug target for malaria. Systems and Synthetic Biology. 2015 Apr. doi:10.1007/s11693-015-9168-8.
• Phulera S, Mande SC. The crystal structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis NrdH at 0.87Å suggests a possible mode of its activity. Biochemistry. 2013 Jun 11;52(23):4056–4065. doi:10.1021/bi400191z.

Reviews

• Naiyer S, Dwivedi L, Singh N, Phulera S, Mohan V, Kamran M. Role of Transcription Factor BEND3 and Its Potential Effect on Cancer Progression. Cancers. 2023;15(14):3685. doi:10.3390/cancers15143685.
• Phulera S, Akif M, Sardesai AA, Mande SC. Redox Proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Journal of the Indian Institute of Science. 2014;94:127–137.

• Sep 2026 – Present: Assistant Professor
  • Mahindra University, Hyderabad, India
• Mar 2024 – Aug 2026: Staff Scientist
  • Ward Lab, Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA, USA
• Oct 2022 – Jan 2024: Senior Scientist
  • Initium Therapeutics, Natick, MA, USA
• Jan 2019 – Sep 2022: Postdoctoral Scholar
  • Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA, USA; Advisors: Wilhelm Weihofen and Jonathan Whicher
• Jul 2017 – Jan 2019: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  • Vollum Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA; Advisor: Eric Gouaux
• 2010 – 2017: Ph.D. Student
  • National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India; Advisor: Shekhar C. Mande

• Structural biology of membrane proteins and molecular mechanisms of disease.
• Voltage-gated ion channels and their modulators, including structural studies of sodium channels and toxin interactions.
• Structural and biophysical investigation of viral antigens and antibody recognition, including HIV envelope glycoprotein–antibody complexes.
• Antibody engineering, biotherapeutics, and antibody-guided therapeutic and vaccine design.
• AI-assisted structural biology and protein design, including generative protein design approaches.
• Autoimmune diseases and the structural basis of immune responses.