PEPTIDE SCIENCE IN THE YEARS TO COME

Bioactive peptides, exhibit a remarkable range of biological properties, but their utilization for clinical purposes such as diagnostic or therapeutics has some serious drawbacks and disadvantages. The main obstacles are their susceptibility to attack by proteolytic enzymes, their poor bioavailability, and for some of them, the difficulty of exerting centra I nervous effects after peripheral administration. Many efforts will be made in the near future by peptide chemists, in diverse areas of therapeutics such as the search of new drugs, active on the nervous system and capable of producing those typical, analgesic effects which led to the clinical use of opiates, but devoid of undesirable properties. Another object deals with anti-microbial peptides. Under the selective pressure exerted by the use and misuse of conventional antibiotics, bacteria are rapidly gaining resistance to these drugs and the search for novel antibacterial agents is in high demand.