New peptide strategy aims to make cancer targeting more precise

Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are working on a promising strategy to make cancer therapies smarter and more precise, using peptides that switch on in the acidic environment surrounding tumors. Francisco N. Barrera's lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology has created a class of peptides that can sense acidity and insert into cell membranes only under those conditions.