From Helix Stabilization to Targeted Therapeutics: Stapled Peptides and their PROTAC Chimeras for Wild-Type p53 Cancers
Lecture date: September 17, 2026
Loren Walensky, MD, PhD
Attending Physician
Boston Children's Hospital
The presentation will trace the evolution of stapled peptide technology from helix stabilization and protein-protein interaction targeting to the development of TAPTACs, triple-action stapled peptide PROTAC chimeras that simultaneously inhibit HDM2 and HDMX while hijacking HDM2 to degrade oncogenic proteins. By integrating maximal p53 reactivation with targeted protein degradation into a single agent, TAPTACs achieves potent anti-cancer activity across wild-type p53 malignancies while overcoming key efficacy and toxicity limitations of prior combination strategies.
