Meet the under-35s shaping the future of biotech

Paschal Kija’s $70 “Mkanda Salama” device stops postpartum hemorrhage in 73% of cases within 20 minutes, addressing a leading cause of maternal deaths in Tanzania. Xiao Yang has created ultra-small, flexible brain-electrode sheets inspired by kirigami, reducing tissue damage while enabling cellular studies. Kyle “KJ” Muldoon Jr. received a personalized gene-editing therapy developed by Sarah Grandinette’s team, which corrected his fatal genetic disorder after pre-clinical testing in mice and monkeys. Yuancheng Lu’s reprogramming treatment that restored vision in blind, aged mice entered human trials in June, targeting age-related eye disease. Samuel King used generative AI to design bacteriophage genomes, printed them as DNA, and demonstrated self-replicating, bacterial-killing viruses, suggesting future applications in therapeutics and pollution remediation.