Biotech innovation is taking shape in places that range from maternity wards to neuroscience labs and gene-editing research centers. The people behind these projects are young, but their work tackles problems that have challenged medicine for decades.
The 2026 35 Innovators Under 35 list from MIT Technology Review includes nine people transforming biotech. The list, published on September 8, 2026, was selected from 550 nominations, with 44 expert judges evaluating the finalists. Their projects show how new medical tools can be practical, precise, and built around urgent needs.
Low-cost care and smarter medical devices
Paschal Kija, 28, developed Mkanda Salama, a device designed to treat postpartum hemorrhage in Tanzania. The device costs $70, a price aimed at making treatment more accessible in settings where medical resources can be limited.
Postpartum hemorrhage contributes to 29% of maternal deaths in Tanzania. That number gives Kija’s work a clear purpose: help stop dangerous bleeding during a medical emergency, using a device that hospitals and clinics can afford.
A study found that Mkanda Salama stopped postpartum bleeding in 73% of women within 20 minutes. The result connects a simple price point with a measurable medical outcome, which is the kind of combination that can shape how health technology reaches patients.
Another project focuses on the brain rather than emergency childbirth. Xiao Yang, 34, is working on ultra-small, flexible brain electrodes inspired by Japanese kirigami, a paper-cutting technique.
Yang’s electrodes look like actual neurons instead of rigid electronic parts. The design includes sheets with a honeycombed spiral basket structure, giving the electrodes a flexible form that matches the complex shape of brain tissue.
That approach puts the device closer to the biology it is meant to study. The project reflects a wider direction in biotech: medical tools that interact with the body while matching its structure, rather than forcing the body to adapt to hard, fixed hardware.
Gene editing moves from the lab toward patients
Some of the list’s most personal work centers on Kyle “KJ” Muldoon Jr., who was born in 2024 with a rare genetic disorder. Sarah Grandinette, 26, created cells with KJ’s genetic variant so researchers could screen gene-editing approaches and test medicines in mice and monkeys.
KJ received his first dose of the gene-editing treatment at about seven months old and responded well. His case shows how researchers can build experiments around one patient’s genetic variant, using laboratory cells and animal testing to guide treatment decisions.
Gene editing is not the only field moving from animal studies into human trials. A study published in 2020 showed that reprogramming therapy reversed vision loss in aged, blind mice.
Life Biosciences is now testing a reprogramming therapy in humans with eye disease. The first volunteer was dosed in June, marking a step from findings in aged, blind mice toward treatment for people with eye disease. Yuancheng (Ryan) Lu is involved in the reprogramming therapy research.
That transition matters because results in mice do not answer every question about human treatment. A human trial creates a new test for whether the therapy can deliver a similar benefit in patients.
Generative AI designs viruses with biological functions
Samuel King, 27, used generative AI to design new genetic blueprints for bacteriophages last year. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria, and King’s AI-designed viruses did more than exist as digital plans.
The viruses could produce new copies, burst out of bacteria, and infect other bacteria. Those functions show how generative AI can move beyond familiar uses such as producing text or images and into the design of biological systems.
King’s work also brings together two fields that once seemed separate: artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. The software created new blueprints, while biology provided the test of whether those designs could perform the functions encoded in them.
Together, these projects present a broad picture of biotech’s next phase. Kija is working on an affordable response to maternal deaths in Tanzania, Yang is shaping brain electrodes around the form of neurons, Grandinette is developing a treatment for a child with a rare genetic disorder, and King is using generative AI to design viruses.
The common thread is not one technology or one disease. It is the effort to turn research into tools that can act inside the real world, whether that means stopping bleeding within 20 minutes, connecting more naturally with brain tissue, correcting a genetic disorder, or creating viruses that can reproduce and infect bacteria.
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