Professor Chai-Lin Kao’s research team has been awarded the NSTC Germination Grant Program in two rounds (2024-2 and 2026-1), receiving NTD 6 million and NTD 5.6 million, respectively. The awards recognize the team’s strong research background, alignment with industry needs, and potential for commercialization.

The team has developed an innovative Solid-Phase Peptide Ligation technology that integrates peptide synthesis and ligation directly on resins. This platform significantly improves yield and purity, simplifies purification, and enables flexible production of diverse peptide derivatives, including linear, cyclic, branched, and peptide–drug conjugates.

Addressing key challenges in early-stage peptide drug development, this skill supports milligram- to gram-scale production. It provides high-quality peptide intermediates and reference standards, effectively bridging academic research and industrial applications.

Receiving two rounds of Germination Grant funding underscores the technology’s readiness for industrial translation. Moving forward, Professor Kao’s team will continue advancing scale-up, regulatory alignment, and industry collaboration to strengthen Taiwan’s competitiveness in the high-value peptide industry.