{"entity":{"id":"programmable-dna-targeting-therapeutics","kind":"technology","name":"Programmable DNA-targeting therapeutics","aka":[],"tldr":"Programmable DNA-targeting therapeutics are an experimental idea: a drug that reads a cell's DNA, recognises a cancer-specific sequence, and kills only cells that carry it. Change the guide, and the same drug becomes a new drug.","summary":"Sequence-programmable therapeutics aim to act at the DNA level rather than the protein level, in principle reaching drivers with no druggable protein pocket (MYC, TP53 loss, APC loss). Conceptual relatives include CRISPR-based transcriptional or lethal editing, sequence-specific DNA-binding toxins, and synthetic gene circuits that fire on a mutant sequence. FinalDose (Y Combinator Spring 2026) is the most visible company pursuing a programmable 'guide + kill switch' platform; no peer-reviewed data, IND, or clinical trial had been disclosed by September 2026. Delivery to tumour cells in vivo, off-target recognition, and immunogenicity are the known barriers for every DNA-level modality to date.","status":"preclinical","asOf":"2026-09-06","links":[{"label":"FinalDose (Y Combinator)","url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/finaldose"}],"tags":["frontier","concept"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":["targeted-therapy","drug-discovery"],"technologies":["crispr-screens","antisense-sirna"],"targets":["tp53","kras"],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"principle":"A guide component recognises a defined genomic sequence inside the cell; recognition triggers an effector (nuclease, toxin, or transcriptional switch) that kills or disables the cell. Healthy cells lacking the sequence are, in theory, untouched.","strengths":["Targets the causal genetic lesion rather than a downstream protein","Re-programmable: new guide, new indication","Could address tumour-suppressor loss and 'undruggable' drivers"],"limitations":["No human data yet (2026)","Delivery to solid tumours is unsolved for nucleic-acid therapeutics","Off-target cutting or recognition; immunogenicity of bacterial proteins","Tumour heterogeneity means a single sequence may not be present in every cell"]},"route":"/technologies/programmable-dna-targeting-therapeutics/","neighbours":{"section":[{"id":"drug-discovery","kind":"section","name":"Drug Discovery Platforms","route":"/fronts/drug-discovery/"},{"id":"targeted-therapy","kind":"section","name":"Targeted Therapy","route":"/fronts/targeted-therapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"crispr-screens","kind":"technology","name":"CRISPR functional genomics","route":"/technologies/crispr-screens/"},{"id":"epigenetic-editing","kind":"technology","name":"Epigenetic editing (durable gene silencing)","route":"/technologies/epigenetic-editing/"},{"id":"in-vivo-gene-editing-cancer","kind":"technology","name":"In vivo base and prime editing for cancer","route":"/technologies/in-vivo-gene-editing-cancer/"},{"id":"antisense-sirna","kind":"technology","name":"Oligonucleotide therapeutics","route":"/technologies/antisense-sirna/"}],"target":[{"id":"kras","kind":"target","name":"KRAS","route":"/targets/kras/"},{"id":"tp53","kind":"target","name":"TP53","route":"/targets/tp53/"}],"company":[{"id":"finaldose","kind":"company","name":"FinalDose","route":"/companies/finaldose/"}],"idea":[{"id":"idea-bio2-n-of-1-framework","kind":"idea","name":"A standing rulebook for one-patient treatments","route":"/ideas/idea-bio2-n-of-1-framework/"}],"roadmap":[{"id":"frontier-2035","kind":"roadmap","name":"Radical oncology: what could change the war by 2035","route":"/roadmaps/frontier-2035/"}]}}