Bradley L. Pentelute

His research program lies at the intersection of chemistry and biology and develops bioconjugation strategies, cytosolic delivery platforms, and rapid flow synthesis technologies to optimize the production, achieve site-specific modification, enhance stability, and modulate function of a variety of bioactive agents.

[2][3] This system is able to form amide bonds at a more efficient rate than standard commercial equipment and has helped in the process of understanding protein folding and its mechanisms.

This automated flow technology was recently used to achieve total chemical synthesis of protein chains up to 164 amino acids in length that retained the structure and function of native variants obtained by recombinant expression.

[4][5] The primary goal of his endeavor is to use these processes to create designer biologics that can be used to treat diseases and solve the manufacturing problem for on-demand personalized therapies, such as cancer vaccines.

This technology was used to achieve stepwise total chemical synthesis of functional protein chains[5] and was adapted to produce phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMO) in flow.

[10] Automated flow technology may be used to solve the manufacturing problem for on-demand personalized therapies, such as cancer vaccines,[11] and to design engineered biologics, such as dimeric transcription factor mimetics.

Having been made from natural compounds, the pi-clamp reacts with a perfluoroaromatic reagent and the cysteine thiol site, thus causing an overall decrease in the reaction's activation energy.

Additional advantages of this pi-clamping technique compared to non-natural methods include the clamp being of small size and being able to have direct interaction with the site.