Official Project Description
Cyclic tetrapeptides (CTPs) are a relatively unexplored class of small, ring-shaped molecules built from amino acids.
Their unique structure makes them promising candidates for drug discovery, but there's still much we don't know about how to make them efficiently.
The main challenge in synthesizing CTPs is getting the ends of their linear precursors to “close” and make the ring, a step that’s limited by their small size and rigidity. Recent findings from the O’Reilly Lab at Villanova University suggest that the success of this cyclization process depends heavily on the specific L/D stereochemistry of the amino acids involved.
In collaboration with the O'Reilly Lab, the Voelz Lab at Temple University is using distributed computing on Folding@Home to gather kinetic data on all L/D variants of a key precursor.
This large dataset will help us understand how stereochemistry affects ease of synthesis, tell us more about the motion and behavior of these molecules, and may inform future efforts to synthesize novel CTPs.