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author：focus 2025-10-08 15:27:52 - browse：97617

A black and white cutout photo of Feng Zhang on the left of a black and white cutout photo of Alex Aravanis. Both photos are placed on top of yellow geometric shapes and a gradient dark blue background. — Researcher Feng Zhang, left, and Alex Aravanis, the CEO of Moonwalk. Illustration: Christine Kao/STAT; Photo: Katherine Taylor for STAT and Business Wire

A new startup co-founded by CRISPR innovator Feng Zhang, a former executive at Grail and Illumina, and others has raised $57 million to develop a defanged form of gene editing that doesn’t cut the DNA strand.

Moonwalk Therapeutics launched Thursday with funding from Alpha Wave Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Future Ventures, Khosla Ventures, GV, and YK Bioventures. It plans to use that money to develop treatments for a variety of diseases, including chronic and aging-related conditions, using what’s called epigenetic editing.

Most of the gene editing technologies being used today slice or nick the DNA strand and make permanent changes to the biological building blocks of genes. Moonwalk, however, plans to alter the activity of genes by focusing on chemical changes. The company is targeting the surrounding chemicals that influence how genes act. This can be done through chemical processes methylation, which turns genes on, or demethylation, which turns genes off.

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