Researchers in the lab of Bradley Pentelute, MIT professor of chemistry, have invented a fully automated fast-flow instrument that can synthesize peptide-nucleic acids in a single shot.
By automating the process of synthesizing CPP-conjugated peptide-nucleic acids (PPNAs) using the robot dubbed “Tiny Tides” by the research team, typical PPNA synthesis time was reduced from multiple days to just two hours.
“This new efficient technology represents a potential major step forward to enable on-demand rapid production of candidate antisense oligonucleotides, not only for Covid-19 but also for other diseases and emerging pathogens,” says Chengxi Li, a co-author of the paper and a postdoc in the Pentelute Group.
The paper, “Automated Flow Synthesis of Peptide−PNA Conjugates,” was recently published in ACS Central Science.
