Terry D. Hinds, Jr, PhD

Advanced Discovery Technologies and Precision Medicine

The Hinds Laboratory serves as the scientific engine of the Drug & Disease Discovery (D3) Research Center at the University of Kentucky, a translational research enterprise dedicated to redefining how diseases are understood, diagnosed, and treated. Our mission is to uncover previously unrecognized biological pathways that drive human disease and translate these discoveries into precision therapeutics, personalized medicine strategies, and next-generation technologies. By integrating molecular biology, systems physiology, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, and drug discovery, we pursue transformative science that can change clinical practice and establish entirely new areas of investigation. 

The laboratory is internationally recognized for pioneering advanced signaling and nuclear receptor technologies. As one of only a handful of centers in the United States using the PamGene PamStation platform, the Hinds Lab specializes in high-dimensional kinome profiling that measures hundreds of kinase activities simultaneously from a single biological specimen. These technologies allow direct measurement of pathway activity rather than prediction from gene expression alone, creating a functional map of disease mechanisms and therapeutic responses. Through computational pipelines and systems-level bioinformatic analysis, our team transforms complex signaling data into actionable biological insight. 

Most notably, the Hinds Lab developed the foundational methodologies that enabled the use of PamGene's Nuclear Hormone Receptor (NHR) PamChip technology in biological tissues and disease models. Through this work, the laboratory became the exclusive academic collaborator for the NHR PamChip platform, a unique technology that quantifies interactions between nuclear receptors and 155 coregulator motifs in real time. This capability provides an unprecedented functional view of hormone action, drug response, and transcriptional regulation. Today, the Hinds Laboratory is recognized as a world leader in nuclear receptor coregulator biology and functional kinome signaling network analysis. 

Our vision extends beyond pathway discovery. We are pioneering a new precision medicine framework that integrates kinome profiling, artificial intelligence, and predictive computational modeling. This work led to the development of the patented "Clinical Trial on a PamChip" platform, a technology designed to predict therapeutic responsiveness by measuring pathway activity directly from patient-derived biological samples. 

Landmark Scientific Discoveries

The Hinds Laboratory is distinguished by a history of discoveries that have challenged prevailing scientific dogma and created new fields of investigation.

Among the most transformative was the discovery that bilirubin is not merely a waste product of heme metabolism, but functions as a metabolic hormone and endogenous nuclear receptor ligand. This work fundamentally altered understanding of hepatobiliary physiology and established a new paradigm linking bilirubin signaling to obesity, diabetes, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome. These discoveries launched a rapidly expanding international research field, generated multiple patents, and established new therapeutic opportunities for metabolic disease. 

Other landmark achievements include:

• Discovery of the murine glucocorticoid receptor beta (GRβ) gene and development of the first experimental platform for studying its biological function. 
• Development of the world's only reported GRβ-specific antagonist, resulting in international patent protection and novel therapeutic applications. 
• Discovery that bilirubin directly activates nuclear receptor signaling pathways regulating energy metabolism and mitochondrial function. 
• Creation of bilirubin-derived therapeutic compounds and nanotechnologies for obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular disorders. 
• Development of AI-guided signaling and kinome platforms designed to advance precision medicine and therapeutic development. 

*Several additional discoveries with substantial translational and commercial potential remain under active intellectual property protection. 

Research Vision

Our research seeks to answer a provocative question: What if the molecules traditionally dismissed as metabolic byproducts are actually master regulators of human physiology?

This question led to the discovery that bilirubin functions as a metabolic hormone and continues to drive our investigations into nutrient sensing, hormone signaling, metabolism, and disease pathogenesis. We focus on identifying previously unrecognized signaling networks governing obesity, insulin resistance, MASLD, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, addiction biology, and aging. By combining advanced omics, kinomics, nuclear receptor biology, artificial intelligence, and translational physiology, we aim to uncover new biological principles and transform them into therapies that improve human health. 

Areas of Expertise

• Metabolism, obesity, diabetes, and CKM syndrome
• Hepatobiliary biology and MASLD/MASH
• Nuclear receptors and transcriptional regulation
• Kinome profiling and systems signaling biology
• Precision medicine and AI-enabled drug discovery
• Drug metabolism and xenobiotic responses
• Bilirubin and heme oxygenase biology
• Cardiovascular and renal disease mechanisms
• Cancer signaling and therapeutic targeting
• Translational therapeutics and biotechnology innovation
• Multi-omics integration and bioinformatics
• Biomarker discovery and personalized medicine