Scientists Create Vast New Color Palette for Biomedicine

Got story updates? Submit your updates here. ›

A UC Santa Barbara research team has developed a technique for efficiently synthesizing non-natural amino acids and applying them to peptide construction. The key advantage is that these amino acids come out of the process already in a form that can be used directly to make peptides, without extra modification steps. The team uses gold catalysis to create amino acids from cheap, readily available chemical ingredients and a resin scaffold to assemble peptides from the amino acids. Having access to more amino acids opens up entirely new possibilities for biochemists, medical researchers and materials scientists.

Why it matters

The new technique mostly solves the problems of making non-natural amino acids, which are often difficult, expensive or impractical using existing methods. By incorporating non-natural amino acids, drug designers can 'armor-plate' peptides against enzymes or force them into specific shapes to lock onto receptors better, leading to more effective peptide therapeutics.

The details

The team's two-step technique first uses gold catalysis to create amino acids from cheap, readily available chemical ingredients in a highly stereoselective way. Then, they use a resin scaffold to assemble peptides from the amino acids, which greatly simplifies the purification process compared to traditional peptide synthesis methods.

• The research was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in February 2026.

What they’re saying

What’s next

The Zhang lab is currently working to automate the process and make the technique more accessible to drug development and materials research teams through collaborations.