CHINA TOPIX

05/18/2024 11:03:00 am

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Artificial anti-cancer molecules developed by researchers

Cancer

Researchers developed artificial anti-cancer molecules called "Triplexes" that have structures similar  to peptides that fight cancer and infection.

Triplexes are molecules that have the similar 3D helix form that can be found on natural peptides.

Peter Scott, from the University of Warwick, joked that the chemistry involved is like throwing lego blocks in a bag, giving them a shake and finding out that you made a model of the Death Star.

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He explained that the design in creating Triplexes took some thought and computing, but once the method was worked out it can be used in making complicated molecular objects

Scott stressed that when organic chemicals are involved like an amino alcohol and a picoline, mixed with iron chloride solvent like water add methanol strong bonds are designed to naturally fold together in minutes forming a helix.

He said that the assembly instructions are already encoded in the chemicals and there is no need for a complicated separation.

He said that they are left with Triplexes that were formed in a crystalized manner, when the solvent was removed.

Scott said that nature uses this kind of self-assembly to make complex asymmetric molecules like proteins, but doing it artificially proves to be a major challenge.

The peptides that were created by the researchers had been successfully tested in colon cancer cells but still require further research.

Researchers said that their creations were made of simple building blocks that have very low toxicity level to bacteria.

Scott believes that their discovery is a very unusual and promising find.

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