History of Peptide Research

Proteins [From proteios, Greek for primary) are considered the primary material of life, and the relevance and ubiquitous role of peptides (from peptein, Greek for digestion) have been investigated in biochemistry and drug research since their 

The progress of peptide research was expedited by the completion of the Human Genome Project. The availability of DNA sequence information has made it possible to rapidly discover new peptides by screening DNA and expression libraries. Using bioinformatic tools (Antelmann et al., 2001 and Chen et al., 2003), numerous as yet unknown putative polypeptides have been predicted as candidates with secretory properties or as proteases. 

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The analytical tools available in the early history of peptide research were rather poor. The starting point for analytical, at first qualitative, studies was probably the introduction of ninhydrin by S. Ruhemann (cf. p. 51) in 1910. For the determination of small amounts of a-amino acids ninhydrin is far superior to the combustion methods in use until then. 

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