FinalDose
Y Combinator Spring 2026 start-up building a programmable DNA-targeting drug: a molecule that recognises a cancer-specific DNA sequence inside a cell and triggers a kill switch only there.
Founded by three Oxford PhDs (Jeff Liu, Li-Yao Huang, Steven Lin). The pitch: swap the guide sequence and the same drug becomes a new drug, unlocking 'undruggable' drivers such as MYC, TP53, and APC at the DNA level and, the company claims, 80% of cancers that protein-targeted drugs cannot reach. Preclinical and pre-revenue, with no published data or trials by September 2026. Listed here as the clearest example of the sequence-programmable therapeutic concept.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- TechnologyIn vivo base and prime editing for cancer
Shares Programmable DNA-targeting therapeutics, TP53, KRAS and the tag frontier.
- TechnologyEpigenetic editing (durable gene silencing)
Shares Programmable DNA-targeting therapeutics and the tag frontier.
- CompanyBulsara Bioworks
Shares TP53 and the tag early-stage.
- TechnologyOligonucleotide therapeutics
Shares Programmable DNA-targeting therapeutics and the tag frontier.
- IdeaA guaranteed purchase prize for the first drug against a named hard target
- TechnologyEngineered exosomes as drug carriers
Shares KRAS and the tag frontier.
- IdeaA synthetic lethality map for every cancer driver in every tissue context
- IdeaAn open degrader consortium against every undruggable driver transcription factor