Margaux Pinney

Margaux Pinney is an Assistant Professor in the Department of BIO at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on proteins and their roles in cellular processes, including enzyme catalysis, molecular signaling, and membrane interactions. Pinney's work addresses limitations in traditional biochemistry by developing high-throughput, microfluidic-based methods to measure biochemical properties of thousands of protein variants simultaneously. Her lab combines quantitative precision with scalability to study protein function, evolution, and disease-related mutations. By integrating machine learning and deep learning, Pinney aims to predict biochemical properties from protein sequences and explore sequence-function-phenotype relationships. Her research also investigates how environmental conditions and evolutionary history shape protein landscapes and how this knowledge can inform enzyme design and engineering.

Margaux Pinney, an enzymologist at the University of California, Berkeley, focuses on understanding enzyme mechanisms through structural and computational approaches. Her research explores how hydrogen bonds, conformational ensembles, and active site positioning contribute to catalytic efficiency and temperature adaptation. By integrating X-ray crystallography, molecular dynamics, and high-throughput protease enzymology, she investigates the molecular forces shaping enzyme function and evolution. Pinney's work also examines evolutionary-scale enzymology to predict biochemical constants and design thermostable enzymes. Her studies on serine proteases, ketosteroid isomerase, and synthetic [2Fe–2S] complexes highlight the interplay between structure, mechanism, and function in enzymatic systems.