Kaido Kurrikoff is Co-Founder and CEO at Vectiopep, a biotechnology company developing peptide-based mRNA delivery technology for cancer immunotherapy. He is also an Associate Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Tartu Institute of Technology.

Kaido earned his PhD in Neurosciences from the University of Tartu in 2009 and completed postdoctoral training at Stockholm University under Prof Ulo Langel, a pioneer in cell-penetrating peptides. He has over two decades of research experience in nucleic acid delivery systems and drug delivery technologies.

Kaido has published 47 scientific papers with over 2,000 citations and holds expertise in cell-penetrating peptides, gene delivery, and mRNA therapeutics. He co-founded Vectiopep with Piret Arukuusk, spinning out from the University of Tartu in 2022.

Vectiopep raised 450,000 euros in a 2024 pre-seed round led by Ivo Remmelg and Dag Nurm, with participation from UniTartu Ventures. The company won first place at the 2023 Startup Day Nordic Deep Tech Pitch Match.

Vectiopep's technology enables selective delivery of therapeutic mRNA to immune cells, offering a new approach to cancer treatment that could extend immunotherapy benefits to more patients and tumor types. The company aims to advance its technology to clinical trials for human testing.