SBIR Phase I:De Novo Design of Unnatural Peptides - Affordable Drug Discovery Platform

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project involves testing and validation of a novel drug discovery platform. An original algorithm is used to design previously unknown peptides that are capable of modulating selected macromolecules of therapeutic importance. Then, such designer peptides are routinely and inexpensively synthesized. The utilization of unusual amino acids is prioritized in the presented approach, to improve the pharmacological properties of the designed peptides. In the proposed study, the design of compounds disrupting the function of selected viral envelope proteins will be attempted. The broader/commercial impacts of this research result from its low costs. De novo design of heavily modified peptides offers a promise of an attractive, affordable drug discovery platform, especially suitable to targeting biomedical problems that are currently neglected, due to the high cost of the competing, currently predominant high throughput screening (HTS) approach to discovering small molecule drugs. Examples include medical conditions characteristic to poorer regions of the world, or rare conditions, which may nevertheless prove important in the context of biodefense. These two areas often overlap. Such medical conditions usually offer a too low financial incentive to justify HTS-based research, yet the effort can be made profitable (in addition to social benefits) if it is based on a changed, less costly discovery paradigm.