What kind of peptides are at the heart of the collaboration...

What kind of peptides are at the heart of the collaboration between Phylogica and Professor Sir David Lane from A*Star?

Hottod got the ball rolling with her post of 11 July in relation to the July 2016 collaboration between A*Star and Merck. The A*Star and Merck collaboration aims at improving the cellular delivery of macrocyclic peptides. Few details are available but interesting background may come from an article Stapled Peptides: Targeting the "Undruggable", by Amanda Goh published in Bio-ITworld in July 2013.

David Lane outlined at the Bio-IT World Asia conference in 2013, the advantages of stapled peptides in disrupting protein-protein interactions. Stapled peptides are a relatively new class of macrocyclic compounds with promising drug-like properties. Lane and his team designed a stapled peptide to disrupt the MDM2-p53 interaction. The stapled peptide was 'exquisitely specific', achieved a 1740-fold increase in binding affinity compared to the original linear peptide and without the nonspecific toxicity observed with the Roche clinical trial of Nutlin, a small molecule inhibitor also targeting the MDM2-p53 pathway.

How does Phylogica fit within the picture? I'm sure that we will eventually find out but there is a real possibility that Phylogica is advancing meaningfully, either alone or in collaboration, towards a therapeutic treatment for both Myc and p53.