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Polymer chemistry

Proteins in a pill

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Protein drugs are important therapies for many different diseases, but very few can be administered orally. Now, a cationic dendronized polymer has been shown to stabilize a therapeutic protein for delivery to the gut.

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Figure 1: Studies in rats showed that covalently attaching a cationic dendronized polymer to an enzyme that breaks down gluten enables the enzyme to be protected from degradation in the harsh conditions of the stomach.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heather D. Maynard is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the California Nanosystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569, USA,

    Heather D. Maynard

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  1. Heather D. Maynard
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Correspondence to Heather D. Maynard.

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Maynard, H. Proteins in a pill. Nature Chem 5, 557–558 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1691

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