Peptide research, regulation, discovery. Every story links to the peptide it’s about.
RSSApproved RAS drugs target a single mutation and tumors escape by reactivating the rest. LUNA18, an oral cyclic peptide from Chugai, blocked the whole RAS family in the lab, including the wild-type back channel. The work is still preclinical.
A target trial emulation across roughly 390,000 matched diabetes patients found no melanoma link for GLP-1 receptor agonists, and the one borderline non-melanoma bump dissolved under a bias-correction check.
In rats and mice, switching on calcitonin receptors in a brainstem cluster called the locus coeruleus cut food intake and body weight while leaving nausea and heart rate untouched. The body's own amylin and CGRP act there too, a hint for the amylin drugs chasing weight loss with fewer side effects.
In a phase 2 trial, 50 people seeking help for alcohol use disorder took oral semaglutide or placebo for eight weeks. The drug did not beat placebo on a lab craving test, but it cut heavy drinking days, real-world craving, alcohol-related harms, and even cannabis use.
In 14,046 diverse US patients, tirzepatide took off about 13 percent of body weight in a year, semaglutide about 6, and the three older GLP-1 shots tied near 4. The trial ordering held, but tirzepatide's lead rests on just 386 people.
In a matched cohort of 1,798 carotid-stenting patients, those on a GLP-1 drug had fewer combined cardiovascular events over a year. The entire benefit was lower all-cause mortality. The heart attacks and strokes the composite is built on did not budge.
Peceleganan, an approved antimicrobial peptide built from moth and bee-venom fragments, beat placebo on the clinical scoring of infected diabetic foot ulcers in a double-blind trial. Overall it did not clear measurably more bacteria. The one exception was the drug-resistant subgroup.
Intratumoral leptin predicted better survival in breast and liver cancers but worse survival in colon and esophageal ones, and the difference ran through IDO1, pointing to a subgroup where a failed drug class might still work.
A meta-analysis of the few trials that actually weighed a test meal found GLP-1 drugs cut about 271 calories from a single sitting, with semaglutide and tirzepatide indistinguishable and real-world eating barely studied.
A meta-analysis of GLP-1 weight-loss trials found overall nonadherence was 37 percent lower than in control groups, but dropouts from side effects were 2.3 times as common, mostly gastrointestinal.
GLP-1 drugs are known to prevent strokes. In 209,180 records, the people taking one who had a stroke anyway arrived with milder strokes, fewer complications, and lower 30-day death than matched non-users.
A rationally designed peptide called X1-3 killed MRSA and carbapenem-resistant gut bacteria on its own, then made the beta-lactam antibiotics those bugs had defeated work again by disabling the NDM and PBP2a resistance enzymes. It is a dish-and-mouse result from Northwest A&F University, not yet a drug.
Cigarette smoke shreds the lung's elastic scaffold into short peptides, and a Guangzhou Medical University study finds those fragments actively block the stem-cell handoff that rebuilds alveoli. An experimental peptide that neutralizes them partly restored repair in smoke-exposed mice.
In 52,212 obese non-diabetic adults, pairing a GLP-1 injection with an SGLT2 pill cut irregular heartbeats about 18 percent over five years, almost all of it atrial fibrillation. An early bump in a dangerous ventricular rhythm faded by year five.
A Fudan University team priced 22 diabetes drugs across ten countries. SGLT-2 pills took 0.7 to 5.1 percent of a monthly minimum wage. GLP-1 injections took 1.6 to 110.4 percent, and unlike the pills their price barely bent to local income.