Demetri Maxim founded Nephrogen in 2022, when his family was battling hereditary polycystic kidney disease (PKD). This biotech startup uses artificial intelligence to develop a delivery system that is 100 times more efficient at delivering gene-editing drugs to kidney cells than currently FDA-approved methods. Following a study published in Nature in 2021 that showed CRISPR could reverse PKD in mice, Nephrogen plans to begin clinical trials in 2027 and has completed $4 million in seed funding. Maxim plans to personally participate in the trials, hoping to cure a disease that affects about 10% of chronic kidney disease cases.