Biotech Nephrogen combines AI and gene therapy to reverse kidney disease — check it out at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 (techcrunch.com)

Nephrogen, a Stanford-born biotech founded by Demetri Maxim, announced progress toward a kidney-targeted gene-therapy platform that combines AI-driven design and high-throughput screening to solve the long-standing problem of delivery to diseased renal cells. Motivated by his own inherited Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) and a 2021 Nature study showing CRISPR can reverse PKD in mice, Maxim says Nephrogen has built a delivery mechanism that is roughly 100x more efficient at transporting therapeutics to the kidney than currently FDA‑approved “vehicles.” The company — one of 20 Startup Battlefield finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — has also developed a candidate drug and plans to enter human clinical trials around 2027 while raising a $4M seed round. For the AI/ML and gene-therapy community, Nephrogen’s announcement underscores two key points: first, delivery remains the critical bottleneck for in vivo gene editing, and second, computational methods plus advanced screens can materially shift that bottleneck by designing organ-selective carriers. If validated in humans, a kidney-specific delivery platform could enable curative editing for genetic CKD (about 10% of chronic kidney disease) and broaden organ-targeted therapies generally. Important caveats remain — the claim is preclinical, safety and regulatory hurdles are substantial, and translational success will hinge on reproducibility and immunogenicity in humans — but the work highlights how AI-led discovery is accelerating solutions to previously intractable delivery problems.