Confo(rmation) active

Drug discovery against GPCRs can be difficult because the proteins quickly fall apart when removed from their natural membrane environment. Confo Therapeutics N.V. has developed Confobodies, which mimic the role of the G protein to stabilize GPCRs in a soluble form for use in screening assays.

The concept for Confobodies came out of the academic lab of co-founder and CSO Jan Steyaert at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB). A Confobody is a single-domain antibody fragment lacking a light chain that is derived from a camelid antibody. ...