Peptide Therapeutics: Next-Generation Antibiotics, Antimalarials and Anticancer Agents

Although humanitys knowledge of naturally-occurring medicinal agents arguably dates to pre-historic times, theformal birth of medicinal chemistry in the early 1900s revolutionised our ability to manage and treat disease byleveraging advances in synthetic chemistry. More than a century later, we have made considerable strides in ourunderstanding of the molecular basis for disease and have devised new ways to identify molecules in Nature,including increasingly complex peptides and proteins, with therapeutic potential. Nevertheless, the modern processof drug discovery still relies heavily on conventional small molecule therapies, given their ease of synthesis andproduction. This proposal aims to unlock the chemical tools needed to produce and optimise bioactive peptides asnext-generation drug leadsa prospect which is currently limited only by medicinal chemists ability to synthesisethese molecules efficiently and sustainably in the lab.