Protein Production UK
Protein Production UK
Proteins are critical components of all living organisms and understanding protein structure and function has led to new insights in biosciences and biotechnology, enabling new treatments for a host of diseases, from influenza to HIV and various cancers.
These advances have been delivered by a transformation in the power and throughput of analytic methods in recent years, leading to a rapidly growing knowledge of the human genome and proteome. However, researchers interpreting protein structure and function have a supply and demand problem: proteins of interest are being identified far faster than they can be produced for analysis, causing a bottleneck in how quickly their function can be deciphered.
Protein Production UK (PPUK) aims to address this bottleneck by developing new, and innovative methods for producing proteins for integrated structural biology, as part of the ‘Structural biology’ theme’s remit to revolutionise how samples are produced, stabilised, delivered and transferred.
“PPUK is going to come up with new ways of tackling the problem of sample preparation in its broadest sense.” Professor Ray Owens, PPUK Principal Scientist.
This work builds on foundations laid down by PPUK’s predecessor – the Oxford Protein Production Facility – which developed workflows for high throughput cloning, expression and purification of recombinant proteins. New technology platforms that are under development include production of single-domain antibodies or nanobodies for the stabilisation of membrane proteins for analysis by cryo-EM.
PPUK will be closely linked to the Central facilities on the Harwell campus aims to work in partnership with academic groups and industry to enable uptake of the technology.
Contact the team
Principal scientist: Ray Owens
Laboratory Protocols
Please find below a series of PPUK standard laboratory protocols, we hope you find them useful. If you have any questions please contact info@rfi.ac.uk.