Peptide Therapies Coming into Their Own: Recent Strides in Research and Emerging Technologies Energize a Once Stagnating Field

摘要

Peptide drug discovery is a huge endeavor—and a huge field. Researchers and tool/technology developers alike traveled to Seoul recently for BIT Life Sciences' "PepCon" meeting, where advances and trends in peptide and protein research were shared. There was a time when the thought of the human brain as a giant endocrine gland was enough to make neuroscientists cringe. Now, it is well accepted that the brain produces large quantities of a diverse array of proteins, peptides, and steroidal hormones that have endocrine or autocrine function. Both functions require specific receptors in the brain to interpret signals from the hormones. These receptors are also drug discovery targets. For example, the search for agonists and antagonists of brain-localized opioid receptors has been ongoing since the nineteenth century.