non-viral-delivery
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Brian McVeigh Built a Career in the Space Between Science and the Deal
After 25 years at GSK and more than 100 transactions, the Philadelphia biotech executive made a founder's bet: the next leap in genetic medicine may depend less on the cargo than on the way it travels.
The $85 Million Bet That a DNA Scaffold Can Make Gene Therapy Re-Dosable
Code Biotherapeutics is trying to turn DNA into the FedEx network for genetic medicine. Its modular 3DNA scaffold promises bigger payloads, precise addresses and repeat delivery - but the public evidence is still preclinical.
Ryan Swoboda
Ryan Swoboda is the co-founder and CEO of NAVAN Technologies, a San Carlos, California biotech commercializing NanoStraw, a non-viral platform that pokes microscopic hollow tubes into living cells to deliver DNA, mRNA, and proteins without killing them. He spun the technology out of Stanford's Melosh Group in 2017 while finishing his graduate research, holds inventor status on early NanoStraw patents, and ran the company's NSF STTR Phase II grant before becoming CEO in 2019. A first-generation college graduate, he splits his energy between scaling a deep-tech delivery platform for cell and gene therapy and running science demos for low-income kids.
CellFE
CellFE is an Alameda, California biotechnology company building microfluidics-based, non-viral cell-engineering instruments and consumables. Its Ryva mechanoporation platform squeezes cells through microfluidic channels to transiently open their membranes and deliver gene-editing payloads (mRNA, CRISPR-RNP, DNA vectors) in under 10 milliseconds, aiming to preserve cell health and viability where viral vectors and electroporation fall short. The goal is to make lifesaving cell therapies such as CAR-T faster, cheaper, and more scalable to manufacture.
Alla Zamarayeva
Alla Zamarayeva is the co-founder and CEO of CellFE, a Bay Area biotech building a non-viral, microfluidics-based platform for engineering human cells. A UC Berkeley engineering PhD and former Goldwater Scholar, she spun a piece of academic research she stumbled onto during her doctorate into a company aiming to make cell therapies cheaper, gentler, and eventually available at the point of care. In 2023 she led CellFE to a $22 million Series A backed by M Ventures, and she is steering the company toward redefining how gene-edited cell therapies are manufactured.
Kunwoo Lee
Kunwoo Lee is the CEO and Co-founder of BreezeBio (formerly GenEdit), a Brisbane, California-based biotech company pioneering non-viral gene delivery through its proprietary NanoGalaxy platform. A Siebel Scholar and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree who earned his PhD from UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Program in Bioengineering, Lee co-founded GenEdit in 2016 alongside Professor Niren Murthy and fellow researcher Hyo Min Park, building out a polymer nanoparticle library of thousands of chemically distinct compounds capable of delivering diverse genetic payloads to specific tissues. The company has raised over $118 million including a $60M Series B in February 2026, struck a landmark $644M collaboration deal with Genentech, and rebranded to BreezeBio to signal its pivot from platform company to clinical-stage therapeutics developer advancing BRZ-101 for Type 1 Diabetes.