single-cell-genomics
(2)
CellType
CellType is a Y Combinator W26 biotech startup building an 'agentic drug company' that simulates human biology to de-risk drug discovery. Founded by Yale professor David van Dijk and ML engineer Ivan Vrkic, it pairs Cell2Sentence, a 27-billion-parameter biological foundation model built with Google DeepMind, with AI agents that run the discovery pipeline from hypothesis to compound screening. The goal is to replace animal models and cell lines with computational simulations of human biology and cut preclinical failure rates.
Kevin Parker
Kevin Parker, Ph.D. is the co-founder and CEO of Cartography Biosciences, a South San Francisco-based oncology company using single-cell genomics and AI to map the tumor antigen landscape and build precision immunotherapies. A Harvard and Stanford alumnus who founded the company straight out of his PhD, Parker has raised $124M in total funding, struck a landmark collaboration with Gilead Sciences, received FDA IND approval for his lead drug CBI-1214, and dosed the first patient in a Phase 1 colorectal cancer trial in early 2026 - all before most scientists finish a second postdoc.