A new type of medicine, custom-made with tiny proteins | Christopher Bahl

Some common life-saving medicines, such as insulin, are made of proteins so large and fragile that they need to be injected instead of ingested as pills. But a new generation of medicine -- made from smaller, more durable proteins known as peptides -- is on its way. In a quick, informative talk, molecular engineer and TED Fellow Christopher Bahl explains how he's using computational design to create powerful peptides that could one day neutralize the flu, protect against botulism poisoning and even stop cancer cells from growing.

[___LC___]

Hopefully this will bring us new medicines for conditions that haven’t been able to be well treated by traditional pharmaceuticals. I hope for myself and many others who suffer from untreatable, disabling conditions....of course, that means someone will have to study these conditions.

[JC-nsyh]

Wow great presentation! This is very interesting!

[whoozl]

Eventually, this leads to specific tailored-to-patient drugs... if we exactly understand what makes the patient ill.

[swisstrader]

Thoughts on ipamorelin? Just started taking 2 weeks ago.

[viveknishad]

longevity escape velocity is near, singularity is near. - Ray Kurzweil

[DaBlondDude]

If they're big enough to "only fit one lock" I have to wonder how specifically they can target/restrict cancer cell growth or flu variants

[ajcarpy]

Peptides are the future! BPC-157, Ipamorelin, CJC-1245

[gzpo]

I want to do my thyroid and the autoimmune associated with it.

[brozbro]

the future is always defined as 3-5 years out.

[rickcousins]

An interesting approach to design the therapeutic protein from the start rather than altering a natural protein, which makes good sense. These entities look like proteins and not peptides (a sequence of < 50 amino acids). What are your plans for drug administration/delivery, immune response and anti-drug antibody response, scale-up, manufacture and distribution, all key challenges in translating science into a medicine ?

[qorazx]

This sparked my interested but was not in depth enough for me to really understand what these peptides are about and how they get so special. Now I have to read up on it...

[suporacarr]

I hope we can better treat my mom's arthritis soon with something like this. It seems so painful.

[settembrini]

Are these peptides really small enough to be orally bioavailable without a special drug delivery system? High target specificity is certainly desirable, but it is equally important that the drug can reach its target in the first place, by passing the intestinal and/or blood-brain barriers.

[xiaoyu]

What's the name of your software's repo!

[cwavy]

It is so amazing, I hope it can become true in the recently future

[gracemorganspeaks]

Whoever is going through hard times, sickness and delays. Dont give up you are a fighter. On my youtube channel it was not easy but i never gave up you are so close to victory

[RedMushroom]

a protein designer never such a thing.... this is interesting!

[nathangregory_]

I knew I should have gone to graduate school. :)

[mrmike]

I wonder if this technology could ultimately be used to fight neurological diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, MS, Leukodystrophies, etc.? Why such a short presentation for something so significant? If it is a naval gazing topic TED lets those geeks drone on far too long.

[Alex-ucbd]

Sounds good, I hope it will help a lot of people as soon as possible.