Background

KaMo­Zo Bio­log­ics, Inc. is a biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny found­ed in 2025 in Nashville, Ten­nessee. It was formed to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize a nov­el intra­cel­lu­lar can­cer ther­a­py and a method for rapid intra­cel­lu­lar drug deliv­ery. Both tech­nolo­gies were invent­ed by KaMo­Zo’s founders, Jacek Haw­iger MD, Ph.D., and Jozef Zienkiewicz, Ph.D., at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, Nashville, Ten­nessee.
In 1995 Haw­iger’s group used their first cell-pen­e­trat­ing pep­tide (SN50) to suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­er across the plas­ma mem­brane an NF-κB1 (p50)-derived func­tion­al car­go to tar­get one of the nuclear import adapter pro­teins, Importin alpha 5, to atten­u­ate run-away inflam­ma­tion. Unlike com­peti­tors, who used cation­ic sequences derived either from Trans-Acti­va­tor of Tran­scrip­tion (TAT) pro­tein from HIV‑1, or Anten­na­pe­dia pro­tein (Antp) from Drosophi­la (fruit fly), Haw­iger’s hydropho­bic cell-pen­e­trat­ing sequences are derived from human pro­teins which pre­vent acti­va­tion of adap­tive immune sys­tem and poten­tial drug resis­tance. The SN50 and its con­geners cSN50 and cSN50.1 were test­ed in var­i­ous pre­clin­i­cal mod­els of inflam­ma­tion medi­at­ed conditions/diseases such as endo­tox­emia, acute lung inflam­ma­tion (ALI), meta­bol­ic dys­func­tion-asso­ci­at­ed steatot­ic liv­er dis­ease (MASLD), ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis, inflam­ma­to­ry skin dis­ease, polymi­cro­bial sep­sis, or Juve­nile dia­betes mel­li­tus (T1D).

Cur­rent­ly, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a CRO com­pa­ny, Ichor Life Sci­ences, Inc., and AAPPTec LLC, we aim to val­i­date and com­mer­cial­ize our newest class of intra­cel­lu­lar ther­a­pies, based on tar­get­ing importins α1, α3, and α4, as an effec­tive treat­ment for can­cer. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly focused on treat­ing types of can­cer that lack spe­cif­ic anti­body ther­a­pies, such as triple neg­a­tive breast, pan­cre­at­ic, colon, and prostate can­cers. We also aim to advance the field of intra­cel­lu­lar drug deliv­ery for bio­log­ic and syn­thet­ic ther­a­peu­tics such as gene, pro­tein, pep­tide, or RNA vac­cines.

Pipeline

	nuclear import inhibitors	species-spe­cif­ic cell pen­e­trat­ing pep­tides for rapid intra­cel­lu­lar drug deliv­ery
		in human med­i­cine	in vet­eri­nary med­i­cine
# of sequences iden­ti­fied in in sil­i­co study	1,095	2,685	8,606
# of sequences test­ed in vit­ro	45 (4.1%)	20 (0.7%)	-
# of sequences with activ­i­ty	18	9	-
# of sequences select­ed for devel­op­ment	9	7	-

Home Page