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The inhibition of pathological protein-protein interactions is a promising approach for treating a large number of diseases, including many forms of cancer. A team of researchers has now developed a bicyclic peptide that binds to beta-catenin a protein associated with certain types of tumor. The secret of their success is the cyclic nature and the hairpin shape of the peptide, which mimics a natural protein structure, they report in the journal
Angewandte Chemie.
Because of the extensive protein regions involved in protein-protein interactions, therapeutic approaches involving small molecules are often unsuccessful. Protein mimetics are alternatives that imitate the spatial structure of binding segments of natural protein binding partners. Although beta-sheets protein structures made of several stretched out peptide chains arranged side by side, resembling a sheet of paper folded like an accordion often play a role in the interaction of proteins, they have rarely been us
BBC News
Published
image captionProtesters unfurled banners at the company s headquarters in Cambridge
Protests are taking place at AstraZeneca sites to demand the pharmaceutical firm shares its Covid-19 vaccine technology.
The Global Justice Now group has been at sites in Cambridge and Macclesfield, with another protest in Oxford.
They are calling for the company to openly license its vaccine and commit to sharing the technology with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The firm said it had produced the vaccine at cost and shared know-how .
Global Justice Now planned the action to coincide with the British-Swedish firm s annual general meeting.
Cambridgeshire Police said four people, aged 17, 20, 22 and 49, were arrested in relation to the protest at the AstraZeneca offices on Hills Road.
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