Why Gene Therapy Struggles to Reach the Rest of the Body

Gene therapy promises to cure disease at its genetic root — but most treatments never make it past the liver.

Ali Alhasan, Founder and CEO of NanoPalm, explains why delivery has become the biggest bottleneck in gene therapy and how AI-designed biological “biorobots” could help treatments reach organs that have long been out of reach.

The conversation explores how changing the shape and architecture of nanoparticles allows them to bypass the liver, why moving from complex ex vivo therapies to direct in vivo delivery could transform patient access, and what this shift could mean for conditions like sickle cell disease, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

Ali also shares how NanoPalm built a proprietary library of more than 800,000 nanoparticles to train AI, helping predict safety, stability, and organ targeting much earlier in development, and how the company works with global pharmaceutical partners to turn these advances into real therapies.