Science

What Powers ProteinQure?

We use game-changing technology and science to engineer new treatments for disease. By focusing on peptides—our modality of choice—we achieve tissue-specific design and unlock advantages beyond traditional small molecules.

Using machine learning and distributed computing on petascale supercomputers, computational biophysics and structure-based drug design, our integrated platform ProteinStudio™ is enabling us to create novel peptide-based therapeutics to address unmet medical need.

Drug delivery

Peptide-Drug Conjugates
Peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) mark a significant leap forward in developing therapies that are both highly targeted and exceptionally effective. Each PDC is composed of three essential components:
Payload
Exerts the desired therapeutic effect
Linker
Connects the peptide to the drug, ensuring stability and optimal payload release
Therapeutic Peptide
Guides the drug to the target site

PDCs vS ADCs

Next-Generation Drug Conjugates
While many are familiar with the success of antibody-drug conjugates in targeted cancer therapies, peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) are emerging as promising alternatives, boasting several advantages. PDCs are significantly smaller, allowing for better tissue penetration. For instance, this could in turn provide more effective delivery of a therapeutic payload to a tumor microenvironment. Additionally, the smaller size of PDCs makes subcutaneous delivery an option.
The synthesis of peptides can also be more cost-effective and less complex than that of antibodies, making PDCs a more accessible option for widespread clinical development. Furthermore, PDCs exhibit lower immunogenicity, reducing the risk of adverse responses.
Tissue-specific
delivery peptides

In-silico
Design

ProteinStudio™
ProteinQure leverages cutting-edge computational biophysics and structure-based drug design to explore the vast potential of protein-drug conjugates. Each conjugate is designed with a peptide and a linker that have been computationally optimized to target a specific type of cell surface receptor.

ProteinStudio™ redefines the boundaries of drug discovery by leveraging the full potential of a chemical space of thousands of non-natural amino acids and capping groups. With a foundation in computational biology, chemistry, and machine learning, it integrates multi-objective optimization algorithms and custom-trained AI models with advanced molecular simulations to optimize peptides and linkers.

Unparalleled in computing power, ProteinStudio™ operates on a petascale, enabling the exploration of vast peptide libraries, and the design of peptides consisting of a mix of natural and non-natural amino acids, and exotic chemistries. The platform is engineered for scalability and modularity, surpassing conventional solutions with its ability to support extensive compute jobs and cross-software workflows.

Structure
Driven

Structure Driven
At the heart of our approach lies a profound reliance on and expertise in utilizing 3D protein structures. This is the cornerstone of our structure-driven methodology. Our ability to model and study these structures in-silico enables us to navigate the complex landscape of peptide dynamics and peptide-protein interactions.
By leveraging detailed structural insights, we achieve precision in predicting molecular interactions and properties, enabling the creation of innovative therapeutics. Our expertise in computational biology and molecular modeling underscores our commitment to advancing drug development through scientifically sound and groundbreaking designs.

ML

Cutting-Edge Machine Learning
Our custom machine learning (ML) algorithms are trained on enriched datasets that include public, proprietary, and often project-specific customer data. We leverage innovative architectures and proprietary peptide representations to create our own proprietary library of sequence- and structure-based ML models. These models, designed to fully support thousands of non-natural amino acids, set new standards in data-driven peptide design.

The computational prowess of ProteinStudio™ is instrumental in predicting key properties like affinity, solubility, permeability, specificity, and functional outcomes, paving the way for new therapeutic possibilities.

By combining molecular design and optimization on supercomputers with in-house wetlab experiments, we accelerate the journey from conceptual scaffolds to peptide-drug conjugates that are ready for the clinic, marking a new era in precision medicine and drug development.