Proceedings - Boulder Peptide Foundation

BPS 2023

Miniproteins have big potential for therapeutic development

Chris Bahl

President, CSO, and Co-founder, AI Proteins

ABSTRACT

Miniproteins are a powerful yet underutilized therapeutic modality. They are only 30-90 amino acids in length, yet they adopt a folded tertiary structure like a much larger protein; this structure enables miniproteins to bind with high affinity and specificity to their targets. Miniproteins found in nature are very challenging to engineer to bind new targets. We solved this problem using computational de novo design, finally unlocking miniproteins for therapeutic development.

BIO

Christopher D. Bahl, MS, PhD is a protein designer, biochemist and structural biologist. Chris pioneered the ability to computationally design miniproteins de novo as a postdoctoral fellow with David Baker at the Institute for Protein Design in Seattle. In 2017, Chris joined the Institute for Protein Innovation in Boston as one of the founding faculty members, with co-appointments at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 2021, Chris and members of his laboratory left academia together to found AI Proteins, Inc., where Chris currently serves as the President and Chief Scientific Officer. AI Proteins is leveraging the power of miniproteins to rapidly create novel therapeutics de novo, a game-changing approach with the potential to transform the pharmaceutical industry.

Oral Presentations in Scientific Sessions

The session topics for Scientific Program are Peptides in the Clinic, Drug Delivery, Chemistry of Complex Peptides, Spotlight on Discovery, and Peptide Showcase. Abstracts may be submitted via the Apply to Present page on the website. Submissions will be reviewed by the Scientific Advisory Board on a monthly basis and the speaker will be notified of a decision.

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