Pharma News and Headlines

Drug Discovery Bottleneck? Cell-Free Platform Screens Peptides Faster, Even in Harsh Conditions

Researchers at the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine unveiled PL‑display, a cell‑free platform that immobilizes individual peptides on magnetic beads for rapid screening. The method delivers over ten‑fold efficiency gains versus traditional cell‑based displays and can operate under high‑temperature, high‑salt, or toxic‑protein conditions. By coupling each peptide with its DNA template, fluorescence‑activated sorting achieves up to 10,000‑fold enrichment in a single round. The breakthrough promises to slash lead‑identification timelines in drug discovery and expand the range of viable targets.