FinalDose

Programmable DNA drug destroying all cancers, unlocking 80% of targets

Y CombinatorSpring 2026ActiveHealthcareTherapeuticsArtificial IntelligenceGene TherapyTherapeuticsGenetic Engineering

What they do

Problem

Many cancers and other diseases remain hard to treat because most genetic and intracellular targets are currently undruggable with existing therapies.

Solution

A programmable DNA-based drug molecule that can be configured with diseased genetic code to recognize and destroy targeted cells upon DNA recognition.

Who it's for

Pharmaceutical companies and oncology researchers/clinicians developing and delivering cancer therapeutics.

Founders

Li-Yao Huang

Founder

Founder at FinalDose (YC P26). DPhil in Biochemistry from Oxford, where he spent 5 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. Led CRISPR screening projects uncovering new druggable targets in cancer cells and built pipelines reducing hit validation time from months to 7 days. Research focuses on BRCA1-deficient cancers and PARP inhibitor resistance mechanisms.

Steven Lin

Founder

Cofounder and CTO at FinalDose (YC P26). Oxford PhD in Computational Biology with Wellcome Trust full scholarship. Previously Data Lead at Gutsee Biotech. Developed novel machine learning method to use coevolution biology to identify genetic targets that convey drug resistance in viruses. During SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, led UK biobank analysis of human genetics susceptibility for infections

Jeff Liu

Founder

CEO @ FinalDose (YC P26). Oxford PhD in Oncology. Previous startup (Vivid Dx) solved a multi-decade bottleneck in sepsis diagnostics: low biomass isolation. By overcoming this hurdle, we built the world’s fastest diagnostic system - slashing wait times from 5 days to just 30 minutes. Raised $15M in venture backing.