SwRI and UT San Antonio Adapt Rhodium Platform to Search for Peptide Catalysts
Published in Drugs development & discovery, Tools.
October 6, 2026
Southwest Research Institute and The University of Texas at San Antonio announced a collaboration today to identify peptide catalysts that could support more efficient synthesis of organic molecules used in pharmaceutical development.
The teams plan to adapt SwRI’s Rhodium molecular docking and computer-aided drug design platform to evaluate tetrapeptides, which contain four amino acids. Computational screening will generate candidate catalysts for laboratory testing and validation by UT San Antonio researchers.
Rhodium has previously been used to screen potential drug candidates against viral protein structures. The new project extends its application to catalysts: molecules intended to accelerate chemical reactions rather than directly treat disease.
The collaboration is part of the institutions’ Connecting through Research Partnerships program. Its stated goals include improving the efficiency and sustainability of chemical synthesis.
This is an announcement of planned foundational research. It reports neither experimentally validated new catalysts nor a new medicine, clinical trial or demonstrated manufacturing improvement. Laboratory validation will determine whether the computational candidates deliver useful catalytic activity.
Source: Southwest Research Institute announcement, October 6, 2026.