The Hine Lab

About Us

The Hine lab’s principal expertise is in high-throughput gene/protein library generation. We have invented both ‘MAX’ and ‘ProxiMAX’ and randomization technologies. Each is a defined saturation mutagenesis platform that delivers precision control of both identity and relative ratio of amino acids at specified locations within a protein library. Each process is non-degenerate, meaning that encoding DNA libraries are as small as is physically possible. ‘MAX’ randomization targets codons at separated locations within a gene and is particularly applicable to α-helical proteins, whilst ‘ProxiMAX’ is designed to saturate multiple contiguous codons as required in antibody engineering and is the technology that lies behind Isogenica’s Colibra™ offering.
Since no constraints are imposed by the genetic code, both technologies can eliminate unwanted amino acids such as cysteine and methionine from libraries or encode desired subsets of amino acids with ease. We also have expertise in analyzing protein-ligand interactions and particularly relevant to the PRe-ART project, in collaborating with physical scientists, including chemists, chemical engineers, materials scientists, physicists and mathematicians. Such collaborative projects include development of photonic biosensors, delivery of active proteins to the cytoplasm of cells, protein-based purification of plasmid DNA and mathematical prediction of protein-DNA interactions.

Learn more about our research