133349Screening of conformationally correct protein targets in-solution with complex peptide librariesClosedFeasibility StudiesInnovate UKDisplay technologies are of great utility in the identification of proteins and other molecules that bind with high specificity and high affinity to targets of interest. These technologies, such as phage display and mRNA or ribosomal display, have revolutionized the development of small peptide therapeutics and also diagnostic tools in applications in cancer, infectious disease, autoimmune, neurodegenerative and inflammatory pathologies. While representing current state-of-the-art, difficulties in constraining peptides prior to screening the target and a lack of the ability to screen cell surface targets limit the utility of these technologies. Moreover, as targets of interest are typically immobilized on plastic sur-faces for screening, they can often exhibit incorrect conformations or reduced activity due to denatura-tion resulting from harsh conditions or from conformational changes. Orbit Discovery has developed a novel in vitro peptide display approach that solves many of the existing peptide display challenges. In the proposed project, Orbit plans to move their screening platform based on the Orbit technology from one based on solid base biopanning to one based on the screening of targets in-solution, thus eliminat-ing the associated problems with protein immobilization to a surface and allowing for the screening of conformationally correct, fully active targets.