Peptide Publications Archive

Chiral Prodrug Synthesis

Chiral Prodrug Synthesis

Kong Lab

Carboxylic acid groups frequently serve as essential pharmacophores in drug molecules, yet their high polarity limits membrane permeability and can reduce bioavailability. Prodrug strategies address …

Computational Peptide Design

Computational Peptide Design

Guo Group

Xanthine oxidase catalyzes the final steps of purine catabolism, converting hypoxanthine and xanthine to uric acid. Dysregulation of this enzyme leads to excessive uric acid …

ACE-Inhibitory Peptides

ACE-Inhibitory Peptides

Beys-da-Silva Lab

Hypertension remains the leading cause of premature death worldwide, yet one in five affected adults achieve adequate blood pressure control. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors represent one …

Nitrogen Walks

Nitrogen Walks

Huang/Xiao Labs

Noncanonical amino acids have become indispensable tools in chemical biology and drug discovery. By introducing side chains that nature never encoded, researchers can endow peptides …

Beyond Alpha

Beyond Alpha

Ohshima/Yazaki Labs

Unnatural amino acids have transformed both medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. By introducing side chains that nature never encoded, chemists can enhance metabolic stability, tune …

Clicking Safely

Clicking Safely

Jain Lab

The 1,2,3-triazole ring has become indispensable in peptidomimetic design. Its geometry and electronic properties closely mimic the trans-amide bond: similar planarity, comparable dipole moment, and …

Catching Lanthanides

Catching Lanthanides

Zeymer Lab

Lanthanide ions offer an extraordinary toolkit for biomolecular engineering. Their long-lived luminescence enables sensitive detection, their paramagnetism provides NMR structural probes, their strong anomalous X-ray …

Designing Droplets

Designing Droplets

Pina Lab

Cells organize their interiors not only with membranes but also through liquid-liquid phase separation, LLPS, the spontaneous demixing that creates membraneless organelles like nucleoli and …

Binders by Design

Binders by Design

Pomplun Lab

Discovering high-affinity ligands directly from protein structures has long tantalized drug discovery scientists. Virtual screening can explore billions of small molecules computationally, yet hit rates …

Ribosomal Bicycles

Ribosomal Bicycles

Suga Lab

Bicyclic peptides occupy a sweet spot in drug discovery. Their constrained architectures resist proteolytic degradation and bind targets with antibody-like specificity, yet they remain small …

Taming Aggregation

Taming Aggregation

Hartrampf Lab

Peptide chains misbehave. During solid-phase peptide synthesis, growing chains can collapse into sticky β-sheet structures that clog the resin, block coupling reactions, and leave chemists …

NRPS Golden Gate

NRPS Golden Gate

Bode Lab

A modular Golden Gate–based workflow unites the XUT concept with non-ribosomal peptide synthetase engineering, enabling rapid, scarless assembly of hybrid enzymes. Over 100 constructs yielded …

Mirror-Image Hunters

Mirror-Image Hunters

Denisov/Dijkgraaf Labs

Chemokines make frustrating drug targets. These small signaling proteins orchestrate immune cell migration during inflammation, making them attractive therapeutic targets for conditions ranging from atherosclerosis …

Luminescent Nanosheets

Luminescent Nanosheets

Granja/Montenegro Labs

Two-dimensional materials have captivated researchers since graphene's isolation in 2004, offering properties unmatched by their bulk counterparts. High surface areas, tunable electronics, and morphological anisotropy …

Acoustic Coupling

Acoustic Coupling

Lubell Group

The demand for peptide therapeutics is booming, but their manufacture carries a heavy environmental burden. Solid-phase peptide synthesis, SPPS, the workhorse of the field, consumes …

Guided Precision

Guided Precision

Waser Lab

Cysteine residues attract chemical attention. Their nucleophilic thiol groups react readily with electrophiles, making them popular handles for attaching drugs, fluorophores, and other payloads to …

Crossing Cell Barriers

Crossing Cell Barriers

Meldal Lab

The cell membrane stands as biology's most formidable gatekeeper. Large molecules, from therapeutic proteins to diagnostic agents, cannot simply walk through. This barrier has frustrated …

Photoclick Bicycles

Photoclick Bicycles

Lei Lab

Bicyclic peptides offer exceptional promise for targeting protein-protein interactions, combining the conformational rigidity needed for high-affinity binding with improved metabolic stability. Yet their construction remains …

Borrowed Machinery

Borrowed Machinery

Xu Lab

N-myristoylation is a common posttranslational modification in which the enzyme N-myristoyltransferase, NMT, attaches a 14-carbon fatty acid to an N-terminal glycine residue. This lipid anchor …

Modeling Selectivity

Modeling Selectivity

Miller Lab

Chiral sulfur compounds are gaining traction in drug discovery. Unlike their achiral counterparts, molecules with stereogenic sulfur centers often show improved potency and selectivity. IFM …

Masked Sugars

Masked Sugars

Dong Lab

Chemical synthesis provides atomic-level control over glycoprotein structure, yet hydrophobic sequences often aggregate before chemists can purify or ligate them. This problem may intensify for …

Helical Hijackers

Helical Hijackers

Cai Lab

The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway governs embryonic development, stem cell maintenance, and tissue homeostasis. When aberrantly activated, it drives colorectal cancer and other malignancies. Inside the …

β-Hairpin Oligomers

β-Hairpin Oligomers

Nowick Lab

Researchers in the Nowick Group at the University of California Irvine, reveal how a designed β-hairpin peptide derived from amyloid-β, Aβ, crosses the boundary from …

Gelatinase Targeting

Gelatinase Targeting

Amitava Lab

Antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus thrives on biofilm fortifications and membrane resilience, which blunt broad-spectrum drugs and damage commensal flora. A modular short peptide, Py-FGGK, …