Design and Engineering of Functional Peptides for Disease Diagnosis and Treatment

In recent years, peptides have gained significant attention due to their specificity, effectiveness, and comparatively lower toxicity than traditional small molecules. One notable example can be seen in the deployment of Semaglutide, a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. There have been significant strides in deep learning models used for predicting and designing protein structures, exemplified by notable advancements such as Alphafold, Rosetta, and Chroma. However, the translation of these models into practical applications within functional peptide development for disease diagnosis and treatment has remained somewhat limited. Another critical challenge lies in determining how to deliver functional peptide efficiently to the desired disease sites. Potential solutions include novel peptide modifications and nanoparticle-based carriers.

This Research Topic aims to provide an overview of peptide design and biological characterization, which would help to identify novel approaches to designing the functional peptide and validate their potential targets of intervention for potential therapeutic use.

We intend to discuss and explore the most recent advancements in this field, covering both chemical and biological aspects of peptide design and characterization. The chemical aspects include AI-assisted peptide design, nanoparticle-based engineering peptide, and non-natural peptide chemical modification. Biologically, the topic will focus on areas such as bacterial infection and anti-cancer.

This Research Topic calls for submissions of Reviews and Original Research regarding functional peptide design and biological characterization, as listed but not limited to the following:
• Rational peptide design
• AI-assisted drug design
• Engineering peptides for bacterial infection
• Self-assembling peptide
• Anti-cancer peptide
• Antimicrobial peptide

Keywords: rational peptide design, AI-assisted peptide design, molecular engineering, self-assembly, anti-cancer peptides, antimicrobial peptide, disease treatment, disease diagnostics

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.