Lead Chief Investigator: David Craik, The University of Queensland
Collaborating Chief Investigators: Glenn King, Lara Malins, Gottfried Otting, Colin Jackson, Kathy Belov
Summary
Disulfide-rich peptides are found throughout nature, many of which are promising leads for applications in biotechnology. A challenge is their production because oxidative folding can result in unwanted side products. The aim of this project is to obtain a greater understanding of oxidative folding of disulfide-rich peptides to enable design of any disulfide-rich peptide to fold at will. Specific aims include development of a high throughput platform for identifying correctly oxidized peptides, use of this platform to identify determinants of folding, and integration of new knowledge gained into an in silico prediction algorithm.
Relevance to the Centre
This project directly contributes to the Centre’s vision of engineering bioactive peptides because correct folding of peptides is essential for their activity.