Artificial mini proteins

Virvio Inc. has spun out of a group from the University of Washington to develop artificial mini proteins as novel influenza therapeutics. The mini proteins, typically ranging between 30 and 50 amino acids in length, are a promising new class of therapy that may combine the stability and manufacturability of small molecules with the specificity of antibodies.

The compounds were designed using a computational platform called Rosetta, which David Baker’s team at the university’s Institute for Protein Design created in the late 90s, coupled with a high throughput approach to manufacture, screen and optimize proteins that could bind to targets of interest. Baker is professor of biochemistry and director of the Institute for Protein Design...