Scientists design peptides to enhance drug efficacy

Scientists from the City University of New York, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Weill Cornell Medicine have developed a groundbreaking approach using nanoparticles that are primarily composed of a drug and a thin peptide coating which improves solubility, enhances stability in the body, and optimizes delivery to targeted areas. In leukemia models, the nanoparticles were more effective at shrinking tumors compared to the drug alone. “Using specially designed peptides, we can build nanomedicines that make existing drugs more effective and less toxic and even enable the development of drugs that might not be able to work without these nanoparticles,” said Daniel Heller, one of the scientists involved in this study.