Competitive CDMRP award funds preclinical programs against two cryptic cell-surface targets discovered directly in patient tumors using the company’s AI-powered RyboCypher™ platform and CypherAtlas™ knowledgebase
SAN DIEGO, July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — RyboDyn, Inc., a biotechnology company decoding the dark proteome with an AI-powered sequencing and discovery platform, today announced a $1.3 million award from the U.S. Department of War (DOW) to advance preclinical development of two novel antibody-based therapies for lung cancer. The award will support the company’s antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) and T-cell engager (TCE) programs targeting two previously undiscovered cell-surface proteins identified directly from patient tumors through CypherAtlas™, RyboDyn’s integrated dark transcriptome and proteome atlas.
The award was made through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) Impact Award, a highly competitive program that supports innovative approaches with the potential to significantly improve outcomes for cancer patients. The funding follows RyboDyn’s recent Seed financing and continued expansion of CypherAtlas™, now one of the largest integrated resources for cryptic cancer biology.
A target problem, not a molecule problem
Despite remarkable advances in AI, protein engineering, and antibody discovery, nearly 90% of oncology drugs entering clinical trials still fail to reach approval. In many cases, the limiting factor is not the quality of the therapeutic molecule, but the biology it is designed to target. The industry continues to pursue the same relatively small set of well-characterized targets. Those proteins are often present in only a subset of patients or are also expressed in healthy tissues, limiting efficacy, increasing toxicity, and leaving many patients without effective treatment options.
RyboDyn approaches drug discovery in reverse. Rather than beginning with known biology, the company starts with patients, mining thousands of tumors to identify previously hidden proteins that recur across large patient populations while remaining absent from healthy tissue. By discovering therapeutic targets directly from patient biology before drug design begins, RyboDyn aims to fundamentally improve the probability of developing first-in-class medicines.
Powered by an unprecedented atlas of hidden biology
At the core of RyboDyn’s discovery engine is RyboCypher™, which combines deep sequencing of non-canonical RNAs, proteomic validation, and foundational AI models to identify disease-specific therapeutic targets that conventional approaches cannot detect. Each discovery is integrated into CypherAtlas™, the company’s continuously expanding atlas of the dark transcriptome and dark proteome, now built from more than 2,000 patient samples spanning 12 oncology indications.
Today, CypherAtlas contains more than 6 million conserved, previously uncharacterized dark RNAs, over 80,000 cryptic peptides empirically identified by mass spectrometry, and approximately 10,000 cancer-specific peptides with therapeutic potential. Together, these data represent one of the richest collections of clinically relevant therapeutic targets assembled from the dark proteome and provide the foundation for RyboDyn’s growing pipeline of first-in-class therapeutic programs.
From atlas to assets
The prioritized targets emerged as two of the most prevalent cell-surface targets identified in lung cancer, making them particularly well suited for antibody-drug conjugate and T-cell engager development. Under the DOW award, RyboDyn will generate therapeutic candidates against both targets, characterize their biological activity, and advance the programs through in vivo proof-of-concept studies.
Why lung cancer remains a DOW priority
Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and disproportionately affects military service members and veterans. Exposure to burn pits, asbestos, diesel exhaust, Agent Orange, and other occupational hazards, together with historically higher smoking prevalence, has contributed to substantially elevated lung cancer risk within veteran populations. Approximately 8,000 veterans are diagnosed with lung cancer each year. By expanding the pool of novel therapeutic targets, RyboDyn’s approach aligns closely with the DOW’s mission to improve treatment options for service members, veterans, and the broader cancer community.
“This grant validates our belief that one of the greatest remaining opportunities in oncology is not simply building better drugs, but revealing biology that has always existed, yet remained inaccessible because of the limitations of conventional sequencing technologies. When we analyzed our first patient tumors with RyboCypher™, our highest-priority targets emerged almost immediately. As we expanded our analysis across larger patient cohorts, we confirmed that these targets recur broadly and consistently across patients. That is exactly the biology CypherAtlas™ was built to uncover, and the foundation for developing first-in-class medicines for the patients who need them most.”
About RyboDyn, Inc.
RyboDyn is redefining how diseases are targeted by decoding the dark proteome: cryptic proteins missed by conventional and next-generation sequencing. Powered by RyboCypher™, its proprietary RNA sequencing and AI-enabled discovery platform, the company identifies novel therapeutic targets directly from patient samples. By discovering highly prevalent, disease-specific targets before drug development begins, RyboDyn matches therapeutic opportunities to patient populations from the outset, enabling a differentiated path to first-in-class therapies for cancer and other diseases with significant unmet medical need. Built on intellectual property licensed from Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute, RyboDyn is based at Lilly Gateway Labs in San Diego and is a member of Lilly’s AI TuneLabs consortium and NVIDIA’s Inception Program. The company also maintains a publicly disclosed collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center. RyboDyn is backed by Genedant, SeaX Ventures, SOSV, Swell VC, Massive Tech Ventures, and P2V.
Media Contact
Andy Bass
VP, Corporate Strategy
info@rybodyn.com
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