Dyno Therapeutics Launches Two New AAV Capsids and AI Platform for Rare Disease Therapeutic Development at the 2026 American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) Annual Meeting

WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dyno Therapeutics, Inc., a genetic technologies company applying artificial intelligence (AI) to solve the grand challenge of in vivo gene delivery, today announced the launch of two new adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene delivery capsids for central nervous system (CNS) and muscular delivery, alongside updated in vivo results for previously released capsids Dyno-yp2 (CNS) and Dyno-bn8 (muscle). The company also shared advances from its AI-powered platform that connects frontier AI agents and foundation models to patients to accelerate cost-effective development of genetic medicine. These updates were presented during the company’s Scientific Symposium at the 29th American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) Annual Meeting.

Efficient, selective gene delivery remains a core challenge in gene therapy, as many treatments require high doses that raise safety risks, drive up costs and limit who can access them. Trained on billions of in vivo non-human primate (NHP) measurements, Dyno’s platform engineers AAV capsids optimized for selective delivery, liver detargeting, cross-species translatability and manufacturability.

“Each capsid we launch demonstrates the power of combining deep biological insight with massively parallel multiplexed in vivo experiments and state-of-the-art AI models for protein design, and these new capsids raise the bar again,” said Eric Kelsic, Ph.D., CEO and Cofounder of Dyno. “Every year, partners now have more options and greater confidence in identifying a suitable gene delivery vector for their therapeutic program. This is how it should feel to be rapidly advancing the frontiers of genetic medicine.”

The following Dyno^Ⓡ capsids were optimized and validated for in vivo delivery to cynomolgus monkey, the most relevant non-human primate (NHP) model for predicting translation potential for human therapeutics.

Dyno-9zh for cross-species CNS delivery, crossing the BBB via ALPL-binding

Dyno-9zh is engineered for efficient blood-brain barrier (BBB) crossing and widespread CNS transduction following intravenous administration across humans, NHPs and mice, supporting its potential as a high-performing delivery option for neurological gene therapies.

• Demonstrates exceptional cross-species performance, through head-to-head comparison across NHPs and mice and validated binding to human Alkaline Phosphatase (ALPL), supporting human translatability
• Compared to TTM-027, delivers with comparable CNS transduction efficiency and liver detargeting in NHPs, and with ~2x higher CNS transduction in mice
• At a dose of 3×10¹³ vg/kg, broadly transduces NHP brain and spinal cord, with up to 50% of neurons transduced in premotor cortex
• Significantly lower liver biodistribution compared to AAV9 in both NHPs and mice
• Compatible with AAV9 production processes for scalable and cost-effective manufacturing

Updated results: Dyno-yp2 for CNS delivery, crossing the BBB via TfR1-binding

First announced in January 2026, Dyno-yp2 is a TfR1-mediated CNS capsid that delivers near-total CNS transduction and substantial liver detargeting in humanized TfR mice, positioning it as a promising candidate for safe IV-administered neurological gene therapies.

• In a head-to-head comparison in humanized TfR mice at 2×10¹² vg/kg, demonstrates 1.9x higher neuronal transduction across quantified regions compared to BI-hTfR1v2, and 3.5x higher vs BI-hTfR1
• In humanized TfR mice at 2×10¹³ vg/kg, transduces 98% of NeuN+ neurons in cortex and striatum, 97% in spinal cord, and 94% across the CNS overall
• Achieves 82x lower liver biodistribution than BI-hTfR1 and 29x lower than AAV9
• Compatible with AAV9 production processes for scalable and cost-effective manufacturing

Dyno-n96 for muscle delivery

Dyno-n96 is an optimized AAVrh74-based capsid that demonstrates significantly enhanced skeletal and cardiac muscle delivery and improved liver detargeting in NHPs compared with AAVrh74, at a substantially lower dose than existing gene therapies for muscular dystrophies require.

• Achieves efficient delivery at 5.2×10¹² vg/kg, transducing ~74% of skeletal myofibers and ~16% of cardiomyocytes in NHPs, representing a ~25-fold lower dose relative to reported dosing levels for certain existing muscle gene therapies
• Transduces ~50% of satellite cells in NHPs at 1.6×10¹³ vg/kg, supporting potential for gene editing applications
• Demonstrates enhanced transduction in human cell lines, supporting human translatability
• Compatible with AAV9 and AAVrh74 production processes for scalable and cost-effective manufacturing

Updated results: Dyno-bn8 for neuromuscular delivery

Launched in November 2025, Dyno-bn8 is a next-generation AAV capsid for skeletal and cardiac muscle delivery that demonstrates enhanced potency and favorable biodistribution characteristics in NHPs compared with MyoAAV-4E (Tabebordbar et al., 2021), addressing key delivery challenges for neuromuscular gene therapies to treat muscular dystrophies and Friedreich's Ataxia.

• Achieves efficient transduction to up to 88% of skeletal myofibers in NHPs at 5.2×10¹² vg/kg, and 40% of cardiac tissue in NHPs at 1.6×10¹³ vg/kg
• Transduces ~50% of satellite cells in NHPs at 1.6×10¹³ vg/kg, supporting potential for gene editing applications
• Engages a receptor conserved across NHPs and humans, supporting human translatability
• Compatible with AAV9 production processes for scalable and cost-effective manufacturing

Dyno Psi-1: Advancing open-weight models for protein binder design

Dyno Psi-1 is a frontier open-weight AI foundation model trained on the NVIDIA DGX Cloud enabling generative design of protein binders as therapeutic payloads and protein biologics, first announced in March 2026 at NVIDIA GTC. Dyno further demonstrated the effectiveness of Dyno Psi-1 for protein binder design through experimental validation and comparison across open-weight models.

• Superior experimental validation on average across diverse targets, compared to other open-weight models, including RFdiffusion and BoltzGen, that report experimental success rates against individual targets
• Experimentally-confirmed ability to produce sub-nanomolar binders and design against hard targets with unstructured binding interfaces, such as SARS-CoV-2 RBD
• Flexible architecture that enables users to set developmentally useful sample-time objectives, for example to design for cross-species binding and tune the strength of target-conditioning to improve binder quality

Dyno Phi: Advancing agentic AI for therapeutic development

Dyno Phi is an open agentic platform for therapeutic development available at design.dynotx.com, with API access now expanding to rare disease communities to improve how patients, foundations and companies understand disease, identify treatment options and design new genetic medicines.

• Phi now enables therapeutic developers to run frontier open-weight protein structure models, applying filters and experimentally calibrated reasoning to support genetic medicine development
• Dyno is supporting applications of Phi for patients and rare disease researchers as an AI platform for treatment exploration and therapeutic ideation
• Interested partners can email partnerwith@dynotx.com with a proposal for how Dyno can help

About Dyno Therapeutics

Dyno Therapeutics is on a mission to build high-performance genetic technologies that transform patients’ lives. Dyno applies AI to build technologies for gene delivery and sequence design that advance “Genetic Agency” - an individual's ability to take action at the genetic level to live a healthier life - through safe, effective and widely accessible genetic treatments. With frontier AI models and high-throughput in vivo experimentation, Dyno designs optimized AAV delivery vectors that solve gene delivery challenges across a wide range of therapeutic applications including eye, muscle and CNS. Dyno partners across industries to ensure these life-transforming technologies can help as many patients as possible, including through strategic collaborations with leading gene therapy developers Astellas and Roche and with technology companies including NVIDIA. Dyno's AI-designed capsids are available for direct licensing and through the Dyno Frontiers Network. Visit www.dynotx.com for more information.

‘Dyno Therapeutics’, ‘dyno’, the Dyno logo, and mountain logo are registered trademarks of Dyno Therapeutics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Contacts

Media Contact:
Thermal for Dyno Therapeutics
dynotx@thermalpr.com