Biotech Nephrogen combines AI and gene therapy to reverse kidney disease - check it out at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 | TechCrunch

"When Demetri Maxim was seven years old, his mother's kidneys stopped working. She was put on dialysis, which meant that she had to go to the hospital four times a week to have her blood filtered by a machine since her own kidneys could no longer function independently. Two years later, Maxim's mother received a kidney transplant. Although the surgery was successful and allowed her to lead a relatively normal life,"

"Although Maxim was convinced that gene therapy could reverse PKD, the biggest hurdle was creating a mechanism to deliver the drugs directly to the diseased cells. To solve this critical challenge, he founded Nephrogen in 2022, a biotech startup that uses AI and advanced screening to develop a specialized delivery system for safely getting gene-editing medicines into the exact cells in the kidney."

Demetri Maxim inherited Polycystic Kidney Disease after his mother required dialysis and later a transplant. About one in seven Americans has Chronic Kidney Disease and roughly 10% of cases are genetic. A 2021 Nature study showed PKD reversibility in mice using CRISPR, which inspired Maxim while he pursued computational biology and kidney research at Stanford. He founded Nephrogen in 2022 to overcome targeted delivery challenges, using AI and advanced screening to create a kidney-specific delivery system for gene-editing medicines. Nephrogen claims a delivery mechanism 100 times more efficient than FDA-approved vehicles and is preparing to advance its drug and delivery platform into clinical studies while participating in Startup Battlefield.

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