题 目：Molecular engineering of peptide and protein scaffolds

主 讲：Conna Wang

时 间：2026年1月14日 10：30-12：00

地 点：琳恩图书馆111报告厅

报告摘要：

Drugs based on peptide and protein scaffolds have the potential to inhibit challenging protein targets with high specificity. However, effective design strategies are still needed to fully harness the therapeutic potential of proteins and enable the development and translation of new drug leads. We have employed several novel approaches to design potent lead peptides and proteins, including the use of recombinant libraries to engineer bioactive cyclization linkers that provide a dual benefit of structural stabilization and enhanced activity, as well as molecular mimicry onto in silico–discovered ultrastable disulfide-rich peptide scaffolds. These strategies have been successfully applied to difficult-to-inhibit targets such as PCSK9, for lowering cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular disease, and PD-L1, for modulating immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer therapy. In the final part of my talk, I will discuss recent work using picolitre reactors to enrich peptide scaffolds for function – a challenge with existing library screening technologies. The success of these strategies in generating potent protein inhibitors suggests broad applicability, as many protein–protein interactions remain underexplored due to their complex topologies. 

个人简介：

Dr.Conan Wang is a Group Leader at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience and an affiliate of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland. He holds an ARC Future Fellowship. Conan obtained his PhD in 2009 on the characterization of circular peptides and subsequently received an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship to study protein structure at HKUST and the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery. He returned to UQ in 2012 to lead multinational industry collaborations on peptide drug design. Conan has authored over 100 publications, which have collectively received more than 6,000 citations. He has presented at more than 30 national and international conferences.