Targeting cardiovascular disease with peptide inhibitors of chemokines

Chemokines drive inflammation in cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and myocarditis. Using a phage display nextGen sequencing platform we have identified 295 chemokine-binding peptides from known chemokine-binding proteins and have shown that several peptides are chemokine inhibitors. In this project we will use AI methods (Deep learning−based Language models and AlphaFold2-Multimer) to identify which peptides are most likely to be inhibitors and improve the potency of selected peptides using in vitro molecular evolution coupled to phage-display nextGen sequencing. The improved peptides will be subsequently developed as therapeutics for cardiovascular inflammation.