Coenzymatic tools for the design of macrocyclic peptides (CETMAP)

Description

Drug development is a complex and costly process - countless substances are created and tested by scientists, but only a few actually reach patients. To make this process faster and more efficient, scientists are looking for new ways to create effective substances that could become the medicines of the future.

One promising solution is special circular molecular compounds called peptide macrocycles. These compounds can have precise effects on cells and the body, making them good candidates for drugs. However, at present, making these compounds in the laboratory is very difficult and very few different types of compounds have been made.

The CETMAP project will look for new “tools” - enzymes that already exist in nature but can be adapted to form these circular compounds. Enzymes act as a kind of chemical tool to create peptides faster, more precisely and more versatile, which could become the medicines of the future.

Achievable results

The project aims to find and create enzymes that can perform ring-forming, to investigate which enzymes work most efficiently, and to create a platform that allows the rapid and reliable formation of a large variety of peptide macrocycles.

Benefit

Overall, this means developing greener, more effective and safer medicines, which in the long term helps to create more and better therapies, making them more accessible to the public.