The syntheses of the branched anionic peptide construct containing eight N-terminal glutamic acid residues (E 8 ) using traditional Fmoc chemistry has been described previously [23] . Briefly, synthesis was carried out manually using PEG-S RAM solid support (Rapp Polymere, Tübingen, Germany; substitution factor 0.27 mmol/g). Fmoc-lysine(Mtt)-OH (Novabiochem, Läufelfingen, Switzerland) was first coupled to the support and the Fmoc protecting group present on the a-amino group then removed and Fmoc-lysine(Fmoc)-OH was then coupled to the exposed N-terminal amino group. Subsequent de-protection and acylation of another two rounds of Fmoc-lysine(Fmoc)-OH yielded eight branch points to which glutamic acid residues were coupled. The primary amino groups of the glutamic acid residues were then acetylated using a 20-fold excess of acetic anhydride and a 40-fold excess of diisopropylethylamine (DIPEA; Sigma, Australia) to generate E 8 which has an overall charge of 28. Lipidation of E 8 was then carried out by removing the Mtt protective group present on the e-amino group of the C-terminal lysine followed by acylation of the exposed e-amino group with two serially added serine residues. The Pam 2 Cys lipid moiety was then coupled according to Zeng et al [25] to generate E 8 (Pam 2 Cys) ( Figure 1A ).