Speeding Up Peptide Synthesis
May 2, 2017 | Terry Sharrer
One of the Smithsonian’s icons of molecular medicine is Bruce Merrifield’s original peptide synthesizer of 1963. By attaching the C-terminal amino acid to a resin support, and then adding reagents which would build up a peptide chain, Merrifield pioneered an automated process and won the 1984 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The shortcoming of his approach was the amount of time it took to add one additional amino acid to the chain—more than an hour. Now, researchers at MIT have designed a peptide synthesizer than can attach the next amino acid in 37 seconds. Among many possible applications is custom manufacturing of cancer vaccines. MORE
Image Credit: MIT News