Kidney disease affects 37 million people and is now the ninth leading cause of death globally. Yet despite its scale and severity, it has largely been absent from the precision medicine revolution that reshaped oncology.

In this episode of Power to the Patients, Jason Coloma, CEO of Maze Therapeutics, explains how his team is applying genetics-driven precision medicine to kidney disease by moving beyond statistical associations to true mechanistic understanding.

Jason describes the limits of genome-wide association studies when they stop at correlation, and why understanding the functional impact of specific gene variants is essential for successful drug discovery. At Maze, this approach led to uncovering the pathogenic mechanism behind APOL1-mediated kidney disease, a condition that disproportionately affects Black communities, presents earlier in life, progresses more aggressively, and does not respond to current standard therapies.

Finally, Jason addresses the current state of AI in biotech, where natural language processing and structure-prediction tools accelerate workflows but do not replace cryo-EM, x-ray crystallography, or experienced drug hunters.

What You’ll Learn:

Jason Coloma is Chief Executive Officer of Maze Therapeutics, where he leads the company’s mission to transform drug discovery through genetics-driven precision medicine. A trained scientist with deep experience in drug discovery, Jason previously held leadership roles at Genentech and Roche, including Head of Business Development focused on oncology and research technology platforms.

He later served as a venture partner at Third Rock Ventures, where he worked on early-stage biotech formation before building Maze Therapeutics. Under his leadership, Maze has developed a platform centered on variant functionalization to generate mechanism-based therapies for genetically defined diseases.