Science spotlight: New class of molecular glues, gene therapy for FTD/ALS and more

In Nature, a team led by Amphista Therapeutics Ltd. founder Alessio Ciulli unveiled a new type of molecular glue degrader that it made more potent by engineering it to bind two domains on the same target protein. 

The University of Dundee-based group described two “intramolecular bivalent glue” degraders that bind to the target BRD4 at two different sites, changing its conformation and allowing an E3 ubiquitin ligase to bind and promote its degradation. The two glues recruit different ligases, DCAF16 and DCAF11...