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New peptide-like molecules could treat herpes, COVID-19, and the common cold
Among the powerful biochemicals of the human immune system, peptides are one of the best.
Most commonly found in the places where microbes love to take root - mucous membranes of the eye, mouth, nose and lungs - they re known to kill all sorts of tiny invaders, such as viruses, bacteria and fungi.
Given their power, one might think peptides would represent promising drug treatments, perhaps even a cure, for many infectious diseases. But, alas, they are fundamentally flawed: They are vulnerable to a myriad of enzymes whose job is to rapidly break them down in a way that robs them of their therapeutic properties.
Years of development and testing remain before peptoid drugs, based on peptide-like molecules, could possibly make it to market. But encouraging results thus far suggest they have the potential to become a new category of antiviral treatments for everything from herpes and COVID-19 to the common cold.
A bottleneck limits the effectiveness of microfluidic chips. Reaction-containing droplets can collide, break up, and foul experiments. It s a traffic problem, like several lanes of cars trying to squeeze through a tollbooth, says Sindy Tang, a mechanical engineering professor at Stanford. Placing traffic circles in the flow path causes droplets to line up in an orderly fashion so they can zoom through the system with far fewer collisions.