---
title: "They Came to America With One Backpack Each. Now They're Reprogramming How We Fight Cancer."
url: https://stacklist.com/card/cf25c1df-d569-4b4b-871e-93890310d64b
source_url: "https://unshackledvc.substack.com/p/they-escaped-one-of-the-worlds-most"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/finance/stack/f8553b69-ce7a-48b8-ad46-b884c9a590e7
summary: "Reprogram Biosciences, founded by immigrant scientists Rustam Esanov and Eziz Kuliyev, has closed its $6 million seed round to develop an mRNA-based therapy that reprograms cancerous cells into antigen-presenting cells to fight solid tumors. The company's off-the-shelf approach uses proprietary transcription factors delivered directly into tumors, backed by investors including Unshackled Ventures, 1517 Fund, and Narya Capital."
tags: "biotech, cancer-immunotherapy, cell-reprogramming, seed-funding, mrna, solid-tumors, startup"
key_entities: "Reprogram Biosciences (organization), Rustam Esanov (person), Eziz Kuliyev (person), Unshackled Ventures (organization), Manan Mehta (person), 1517 Fund (organization), Narya Capital (organization), GSK (organization), CellRecodeX (technology), mRNA delivery (technology), cell reprogramming (concept), antigen-presenting cells (concept), abscopal effect (concept), Turkmenistan (location), Moderna (organization), UCSD (organization)"
classification: "memo"
content_hash: "sha256:6f89df5b6335120609d49f73c521dfb593d305d07cc68b5dc6aafad2e69ab21a"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 1853
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# They Came to America With One Backpack Each. Now They're Reprogramming How We Fight Cancer.

They Came to America With One Backpack Each. Now They're Reprogramming How We Fight Cancer. Reprogram Biosciences is announcing the close of its seed round, bringing total capital raised to $6 million since founding. Unshackled Ventures and Manan Mehta May 27, 2026 8 1 Share Cancer touches everyone eventually. The question isn’t whether someone you love will face it. It’s whether the tools exist to give them a real chance. That’s what Rustam Esanov and Eziz Kuliyev wake up every day to build, and why, when we met them, we didn’t hesitate. Today, Reprogram Biosciences is announcing the close of its seed round, bringing total capital raised to $6 million since its founding. Investors include Unshackled Ventures , 1517 Fund , and Narya Capital ( announcement + press release ). One Backpack Each: The Founders Rustam Esanov and Eziz Kuliyev grew up in Turkmenistan, a country most of its citizens never leave. They got out the only way available to them: by being exceptional scientists. They met as teenagers competing in international science Olympiads. Rustam won a bronze medal in biology, Eziz a silver in chemistry. Those medals earned them scholarships to universities in Turkey, which became their first step out. They arrived in the United States at age 20, each with one backpack. Rustam spent the next 12 years becoming one of the world’s leading experts in cell reprogramming — working across seven top research labs and publishing work that has been cited 467 times since 2017, averaging 52 citations per year, compared with the average for PhD graduates of 12. He became the go-to expert on cell reprogramming at GSK, a 10,000-person global pharma company, and was promoted to Associate Director within two years. His first mentor says simply of him, “No one is going to outwork him.” Then, driven by a deeply personal mission he couldn’t set aside, he quit GSK. No investor commitments, no runway, no safety net. He pulled Eziz in, and started funding early in vitro and in vivo studies out of his own pocket. The first experiments happened before a single dollar of outside capital was raised. Eziz brings a deep background in biochemistry and mRNA from his research at UCSD, including experience in vaccine development. Their advisors describe him as “frighteningly smart, mission-driven, and deeply coachable.” The two have known each other since boarding school. Their co-founder dynamic is among the most aligned we’ve seen. Going Inside the Fortress: The Science The problem Reprogram is solving is one of the most stubborn in oncology: most solid tumors are immunologically cold. The immune system can’t see them. Current immunotherapies (checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T) work well for a narrow set of cancers but fail in the majority of solid tumors because those tumors have learned to hide. Reprogram’s approach is to stop trying to fight the tumor from the outside and instead reprogram it from within. As Rustam put it recently: “We go inside the cancer fortress and convince the soldiers to switch sides.” Using a proprietary combination of three transcription factors delivered directly into the tumor via mRNA, their therapy converts cancerous cells into antigen-presenting cells (APCs). APCs are the cells that signal the immune system to attack. The therapy is off-the-shelf, not personalized, and designed to work across multiple solid tumor types. The mRNA delivery method is critical. Moderna’s data show that 95% remains within the tumor, with minimal systemic exposure. No cells need to be extracted from the patient, modified in a lab, and reinfused — no $500,000 CAR-T manufacturing process. The therapy is delivered locally and activates systemically, with preclinical evidence of an abscopal effect — the immune response it triggers also attacks tumors elsewhere in the body. Their discovery engine, CellRecodeX, integrates multiple biological foundation models trained on tens of millions of cells to identify and prioritize transcription factor combinations. The patent on their lead TF trio has been filed. The platform is designed to scale across indications — triple negative breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer — all solid tumor categories with high unmet need. Why We Bet on Them Left to Right: Rustam Esanov, Manan Mehta, Eziz Kuliyev at Unshackled 2025 AGM. Our process with Reprogram started where it always starts — not with the science, but with the person . When someone has escaped one of the most closed countries in the world and built a career at the frontier of cell biology, you don’t begin by interrogating the data. You begin by understanding why. That’s when the full picture of Rustam emerged. The 467 citations since 2017. The Associate Director title at GSK was earned in two years. The decision to walk away from all of it, before a single investor had said yes, as he was funding experiments out of his own pocket because the mission couldn’t wait. The more we understood who he was, the more everything else made sense. A person with that kind of purpose doesn’t build incrementally. He builds to solve the problem that matters most, no matter what it takes. Eziz, for his part, said yes immediately, no hesitation. Two founders who have known each other since boarding school, whose trust was forged long before the company existed. They had already completed 50+ discovery calls with oncologists, secured a clinical advisor at UCSD (Professor Sandip Patel, a leading oncologist), and were in active discussions with clinical research partners. The hustle wasn’t performative. It was just how they operated. We were the first to commit, before anyone else had said yes. 1517 Fund, led by Danielle Strachman, came in immediately after. The seed round followed with Narya Capital and additional capital from 1517, bringing the total to $6M raised since founding. Rustam reflected on this early period: “Initially, once I quit my job, I did pay for some experiments out of pocket to test the idea... And with that, we were able to approach Manan and his team. I don’t know if it was the results that convinced them or something else, but I’m super happy that it worked out in the end.” We can confidently say it wasn’t the results — it was the people and the purpose. What’s Ahead The science is early. There is real work still ahead to prove efficacy, navigate the IND pathway, and reach clinical trials. We know that. We also know that the rarest thing in early-stage biotech isn’t a novel mechanism, it’s a team with the scientific depth to execute it and the resilience to keep going when it gets hard. Rustam and Eziz left one of the most closed countries in the world with one backpack each and built careers at the frontier of cell biology. They didn’t stop when specialist funds passed. They didn’t stop when the science was uncertain. They kept building. That’s the bet. About Unshackled Ventures: Unshackled Ventures is the only early-stage venture capital fund that enables unrecognized and excluded immigrant founders to start companies in the U.S. Since its founding in 2014, Unshackled has proven its thesis that investing and supporting this population drives strong investment returns across key industries, including American infrastructure, generative AI, healthcare, space, and enterprise SaaS. To date, the firm has invested in over 100 companies and over 250 entrepreneurs. Subscribe 8 1 Share