How can affimer reagents provide novel solutions for drug discovery?

Affimers – small, recombinant proteins – offer a novel approach to the targeting of druggable pockets on molecules of interest, as well as diagnostic and biomarker potential. A team at the University of Leeds has demonstrated their potential using the commonly-mutated oncogene, RAS, as a model. The wider application of Affimers could offer new ways to develop therapeutics by unlocking previously undruggable targets.

Our research group is interested in using a novel molecular recognition tool, called an Affimer, to study protein function. An Affimer (also known as an Adhiron) is a scaffold protein that constrains two randomised loops for molecular recognition. They can be used as alternative reagents to antibodies for applications like diagnostics and used to probe the surface of target proteins to identify key domains involved in protein function. Our laboratory provides a service for screening against many types of molecules but our focus is using the Affimer scaffold to understand protein function at the molecular level.