GenEdit: Gene Therapy Delivered



Solving the biggest challenge for CRISPR therapeutics— therapy delivery.



Team


Kunwoo Lee
Hyo Min Park



Milestones


Founded 2016



Area of Focus


Healthcare



Site



Early in Kunwoo’s graduate career at UC Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna discovered CRISPR/Cas9 could be used as gene editing system. It was a breakthrough in molecular & cellular biology that undoubtedly will change the face of genetic disease.

This discovery was massively exciting for Kunwoo, who saw its potential to be a world advancing technology. He dedicated himself to contributing to get it into actual, practical uses in the world as soon as possible.

A big problem in gene editing is the delivery mechanism— let’s say we have a therapeutic for a disease in the liver. How do we actually get it to the liver cells?

Later in his PhD program, Kunwoo  discovered that gold poly-nanoparticles could be used as a non-viral delivery mechanism to safely and efficiently complete the “last mile” of therapeutics.

GenEdit is a culmination of work between Kunwoo and his co-founder Hyo Min Park’s dedication, which they’re calling “the UPS for gene editing,” getting these breakthrough gene therapies exactly where they need to go.

We backed Kunwoo and Hyo Min for several reasons. One, is that we saw their passion for the space, and their immense desire to create true societal good.

Second, Kunwoo is an academic who very naturally crossed over to become an entrepreneur, which is rare, and something we value.

Third, Kunwoo is excellent at taking complex topics and explaining them to any layman, which is important in this business, and again, is rare.

And last, Hyo Min has years of lab experience and is finely technically attuned. Together, they’ve built a sharp technical team with top researchers from all over the country.

It’s a strong endeavor, dealing with massive scientific risk— and a potential for massive upside and bettering the world.

GenEdit is the perfect example of accelerating the path from science to society, our goal here at Bow.