Dyno Therapeutics: Empowering Patients with Genetic Agency

Nov 7, 2025

Eric Kelsic, CEO of Dyno Therapeutics and expert in AI-driven protein engineering, dives into the challenge of gene therapy delivery. He discusses the revolutionary concept of genetic agency, empowering patients to act at the DNA level. Discover how improved delivery methods could potentially allow treatments for most genetic diseases and extend healthy lives. Kelsic explains how AI is reshaping capid design to enhance safety and effectiveness, all while sharing insights on upcoming conferences focused on genetic medicine's future.

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INSIGHT

Delivery Is The True Bottleneck

Delivery is the rate-limiting step for genetic medicine despite cheap sequencing and clear diagnoses.
Solving delivery unlocks treatments for thousands of genetic diseases and broad patient benefit.

INSIGHT

Defining Genetic Agency

Genetic agency means giving patients the ability to take informed action at the DNA or RNA level.
Providing more therapeutic options lets patients decide when and how to intervene for their health.

ANECDOTE

Huntington's Data Shows Delivery Impact

Unicure's Huntington's gene therapy reduced progression ~75% and may extend patient healthy years substantially.
That therapy required direct brain injection today, highlighting why better delivery (e.g., IV to cross BBB) matters.

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For the first time in human history, we can diagnose thousands of genetic diseases—often for under $1,000—but we still can't treat most of them. The problem isn't understanding what's broken; it's delivering the fix to the right cells.

Eric Kelsic, CEO of Dyno Therapeutics, joins a16z's Jorge Conde to explain how AI-designed protein shells are solving gene therapy's delivery crisis. They explore why Huntington's patients can now get 15 extra years of healthy life, how Dyno inverted the liver-to-brain delivery ratio by 1000x, and why capsids evolved by nature are now being designed by machine learning models trained on millions of variants.

Eric introduces the concept of genetic agency—humanity's first-ever ability to take action at the DNA level—and details why solving delivery for common diseases will make ultra-rare disease treatments economically viable. Plus: what happens when gene therapy requires neurosurgery today but could be a simple injection tomorrow, why recent deaths in clinical trials prove we need better technology now, and how genetic medicine could become as routine as surgery within our lifetimes.

Resources:

Follow Eric on X: https://x.com/ekelsic

Follow Jorge on X: https://x.com/JorgeCondeBio

Learn more about GATC 2025: https://www.dynotx.com/gatc2025

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