Designer peptoids-improving on Mother Nature
Peptoids offer a way of improving on nature in a range of biomedical applications such as antimicrobial agents, nanomaterials and diagnosis and treatment of a wide number of cancers.Over 150 peptoid-related papers are now being published per year, and in total, there are over 1700 publications.
Earlier this year, we met with Ron Zuckermann, Facility Director of the Biological Nanostructures Facility at The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Ron and his team have set up a peptoid synthesis core facility available to users of the Molecular Foundry and the team are in the process of developing vast combinatorial libraries of information-rich peptoid polymers that can be screened for a variety of functions.
A key enabler in the research effort at the Molecular Foundry is Michael Connolly, Principal Scientific Engineering Associate, who is responsible for providing high efficiency synthesis support. We took the chance to ask Ron and Mike about their work, and why the Symphony® X peptide synthesizer has proved to play such a central role in their work.