What can cone snail venom teach us about peptides and new medicines?
Anne Conibear joins Søren and AJ to explain how small chemical changes can affect protein and peptide behavior in the cell.
A lockdown project investigating cone snail venom gave Anne the opportunity to explore how these slow-moving predators use potent peptide toxins to paralyze their prey and how small modifications can make those toxins even more effective.
She also discusses how scientists build and study proteins in the lab and how understanding post-translational changes could eventually help develop more targeted medicines.
Anne reflects on a career that has taken her from South Africa to Australia and Europe and what she’s learned from working in different research cultures. The discussion moves into the different priorities of academia and industry, how teaching has helped shape Anne’s career, and what the future might hold for peptide medicines.
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In this episode
- 02:40 – Explainer: What are peptides and GLP-1s?
- 07:25 – How Anne got into peptide research
- 08:00 – What is NMR?
- 12:57 – The chemical changes that alter how proteins behave
- 16:23 – In the lab: peptides as a tool and subject of study
- 18:43 – Anne’s journey from South Africa to Australia and Europe
- 25:38 – Moving between academia and industry
- 32:06 – Impacting science through teaching
- 33:51 – Wherein lockdown leads to a cone snail venom project
- 36:47 – How chemical changes make snail toxins more potent
- 40:31 – What does HMGN1 do and why study it?
- 44:09 – The effect of post-translational modification on HMGN1
- 49:08 – Wrap-up and key takeaways
About the guest
Anne Conibear is an assistant professor at the Institute of Applied Synthetic Chemistry at the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien). Her research combines peptide chemistry and structural biology to understand how proteins are modified after they’re made and how those changes affect their behavior. Her work has touched on everything from improving our understanding of cone snail venom to proteins involved in DNA packing in the cell.
Dose of Discovery is cohosted by Søren Hough and Ayokunmi Ajetunmobi (AJ) and produced by Suze Cooper.
Read more
Making peptides a ‘staple’ of cancer treatment by Søren Hough (Interview with Peter ‘t Hart, Part 1)
AI-designed peptides 'blew minds' of researchers, says professor by Søren Hough (Interview with Peter ‘t Hart, Part 2)
The pharma industry finally believes in peptides, says leading professor by Nnenna Ohaka (Interview with David Craik)
An academic’s journey into peptide therapeutics by Søren Hough (Interview with Nathalie Grob)
GLP-1s forced industry’s hand on sustainable peptide synthesis, says expert by Søren Hough (Interview with Fernando Albericio about green synthesis)
You can find a fully annotated transcript of the episode here.
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