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Compugen Announces New Discovery Platform to Identify Viral Peptides for Use as Human Anti Inflammatory Drugs

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Compugen Ltd. announced the development and validation of its new Viral Peptides Discovery Platform designed to identify peptides from viral genomes for potential human therapeutic use against inflammatory and immune related diseases.

Compugen also announced that the Viral Peptides Discovery Platform has led to the discovery of two viral peptides demonstrating in in-vitro studies the ability to suppress inflammatory responses.

Yossi Cohen, M.D., vice president of research and development at Compugen, said, “This is the third peptide therapeutics platform we’ve developed following our previously announced GPCR peptide ligands and DAC peptide blockers discovery platforms. Each of our three discovery platforms in the peptide therapeutics area relies on a fundamentally different methodology and demonstrates our growing strength and focus in this important field of drug discovery.”

The engine of the Viral Peptides Discovery Platform is based on the concept of utilizing the virus gained knowledge on how to subvert the human immune system. This is accomplished through the use of sophisticated algorithms and in silico tools that predict a large number of potential natural peptides produced by viruses and then select those that appear to have features suggesting anti-inflammatory activities.

Validation activities for this platform included experimentally screening a number of these predicted peptides in a functional assay utilizing activated immune cells. In this validation experiment, two of the tested peptides exhibited suppression of secretion of various cytokines and chemokines suggesting anti-inflammatory properties.