27th American Peptide Symposium

Peptide Science at the Summit

The American Peptide Society wishes you very welcome you to the 27th American Peptide Symposium in spectacular Whistler. This year’s theme, “Peptide Science at the Summit,” will cover a broad range of topics connecting chemical, structural, materials, biological, pharmaceutical and medical science.

Recent Presentations

L82 | Craik

A single plant may contain dozens to hundreds of cyclotides expressed in a wide range of tissues, including leaf, flower, stem and roots. Their stability and compact structure makes cyclotides an attractive protein framework onto which bioactive…

L81 | Boville

At Aralez Bio, we have developed an enzymatic platform to synthesize noncanonical amino acids quickly, sustainably, and at low cost. We use directed evolution to evolve enzymes that can do this synthesis in a single step with…

L80 | Suga

Macrocyclic peptides possess a number of pharmacological characteristics distinct from other well-established therapeutic molecular classes, resulting in a versatile drug modality with a unique profile of advantages. Macrocyclic peptides…

L79 | Chou

We reveal how an extended A chain can compensate for deletion of B-chain residues, which are essential for activity of human insulin but also compromise therapeutic utility by delaying dissolution from the site of subcutaneous injection…

L78 | Mapp

We recently identified a novel lipopeptide natural product, NP 34913, that selectively targets Med25 as well as a synthetically more tractable analog with nearly identical selectivity and potency, 34913-2. Lipopeptide 34913-2…

L77 | Holford

This talk will demonstrate the scientific path from mollusks to medicine examining how venom evolved over time in the terebrid snails, Terebridae, and how we can use this evolutionary knowledge as a roadmap for discovering…

L76 - AW | Schepartz

I will describe the discovery of a miniature protein that guides proteins and enzymes into the cell interior by promoting endosomal escape, a single-molecule tool that quantifies this trafficking event in live cells with accuracy...

L75 | Sexton

G protein-coupled receptors, GPCRs, are the largest superfamily of cell surface receptor proteins and a major target class for drug development. GPCRs are inherently flexible proteins that have evolved to allosterically…

All Presentations

Awards

Goodman Award

APS President, Dr. Ved Srivastava, presents the Goodman Award to Professor Jean Chmielewski.

Young Investigator

Professor Yftah Tal-Gan from the University of Reno, receives his "Young Investigator's Award" from Dr. Ved Srivastava, outgoing President of the APS.

du Vigneaud Award

Brian Gregg, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BACHEM, presents the du Vigneaud award to Dr. Joel Schneider with the National Cancer Institute, also incoming President of the American Peptide Society.

Young Investigator

Professor Caroline Proulx from North Carolina State University, receives her "Young Investigator" award from Dr. Ved Srivastava, President of the APS.

du Vigneaud Award

Brian Gregg, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BACHEM, presents the du Vigneaud award to Professor Alanna Schepartz from UCLA, Berkeley.

Merrifield Award

Dr. Ved Srivastava, President of the American Peptide Society, presents the Merrifield Award to Professor Padmanabhan Balaram with the Indian Institute of Science.

Makineni Award

Dr. Ved Srivastava presents the Makineni Lecture award to Professor Bradley Pentelute from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Symposium Sponsors

Symposium Co-Chairs

Mark D. Distefano

Mark Distefano was born in Baton Rouge, LA, and grew up in California and Paris, France. He received his B.A. degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985 and his Ph.D. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989, where he worked with Professor Christopher T. Walsh. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Peter B. Dervan at California Institute of Technology. He is currently Distinguished McKnight Professor of Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Minnesota.

Les Miranda

Les Miranda is Executive Director at Amgen, Inc. Prior to joining Amgen, Les gained his Ph.D. in peptide and protein chemistry from the University of Queensland, Australia. Les held a research position at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark, and then served as an Associate Director at Gryphon Therapeutics in South San Francisco, USA, where he pioneered work in polymer conjugated non-ribosomal proteins for clinical development. At Amgen, he has held various positions of increasing responsibility since 2004. This includes leadership of Hybrid Modality Engineering, Structural Biology, & Molecular Modeling.