Jake Becraft was working on mRNA way before it was cool.

In fact, Becraft’s advisors at MIT told him trying to develop therapies with mRNA would be a colossal waste of time. But, here we are in 2025, and Becraft has pushed the mRNA technology that gained so much attention during the pandemic in rather incredible new directions.

Becraft joins the podcast this week to talk about his company Strand Therapeutics and its programmable mRNA technology. Strand has developed a way to send therapies into the body and have them aim right for diseased cells. Its first clinical trial has focused on melanoma where Strand has been able to treat patients who were deemed incurable with any other medicines.

Jake and I met up at Strand’s headquarters in Boston with a double-helix hanging over our heads. We covered Strand’s work, Jake’s background and the future of synthetic biology.

We’ll have a video episode coming on Strand and its lab and technology soon on our YouTube channel, which you should be subscribing to because it’s awesome.

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