Enhanced discovery and scalable synthesis of therapeutic cyclic peptides

Cyanobactins are cyclic peptides that may be very effective in combating many disease states including inflammation and infection. There is great interest from the pharma industry in their development as therapeutic agents but these compounds are extremely challenging to produce with existing methods, severely hampering their production. We aim to overcome this limitation, using combinatorial synthetic biology, to design and build the necessary complex synthesis pathways in engineered microbes for scalable production of native and derivatised patellamides. This collaboration combines an academic group with deep knowledge of patellamide biosynthesis and biology with a leading UK based IB company with expertise and facilities necessary to expedite the required synthetic biology approach. The project will deliver novel and improved products and processes to test native and novel cyclic peptides in the treatment of disease.