Award details

13TSB_SynBio Enhanced discovery and scalable synthesis of therapeutic cyclic peptides

Reference	BB/L004429/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Marcel Jaspars
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Wael Houssen
Institution	University of Aberdeen
Department	Chemistry
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	141,116
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/10/2013
End date	30/06/2015
Duration	21 months

Abstract

Natural products often have very desirable biological and material properties. In the future there will be immense pressure to produce economically valuable materials with much reduced environmental impact. This means the Industrial Biotechnology sector (which is related to, but distinct from the Pharmaceutical Industry) in the UK has a golden opportunity to harness world class science. This proposal links first class academic science with unique expertise available in an innovative small company, Ingenza. The main aim of the project is to develop a bacterial system (cell factory) for the production of novel customizable and highly modified cyclic peptides in significant quantities. Cyclic peptides are found as antibiotics, anticancer agents, in hormone therapy and in immune system modifying agents. In addition to their direct medicinal role, they are also very useful tools in studying biological processes, this second role, as tools, is underdeveloped simply because natural products are hard to make in sufficient amounts. The proposed work will solve these problems by providing a plug 'n' play system in which changes can be made simply and quickly to the 'cell factory' to produce a vast array of cyclic peptides at a useful scale.

Summary

Impact Summary

Who might benefit from this research? In terms of economic impact the main beneficiaries will be the UK Industrial Biotechnology sector. A direct link to an innovative UK biotechnology company, and a letter of support from a large pharmaceutical company (Astra Zeneca) are clear indications of this. Ingenza's investment shows that the biotechnology we are developing is of importance and utility to the UK industrial biotechnology sector. We see the technology as enabling benefit by the production of new pharmaceutical lead molecules for diseases which are hard to treat using small molecule therapeutics. How might they benefit from this research? The Industrial Biotechnology sector will benefit from adopting new but de-risked technology. They will benefit from exchange of people and of ideas. The cell based process for the production of complex cyclic peptides will give rise to new materials which we will test for bioactivity in a number of disease targeted screens. We have extant screening collaborations with Merck in the US and academic groups in the UK and Europe. These compounds can then be developed for commercial application and can be licensed or co-developed by industry. Cyclic peptides are now recognised to be particularly powerful molecules in modulating protein-protein interactions

Committee	Research Committee A (Animal disease, health and welfare)
Research Topics	Industrial Biotechnology, Microbiology, Pharmaceuticals, Synthetic Biology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Innovate UK (TSB) [2011-2015]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

Associated awards:

BB/L004380/1 13TSB_SynBio:Enhanced discovery and scalable synthesis of therapeutic cyclic peptides

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