Author Archives: Matthew Raybould

OAS-nano: New Repertoire Database Just Dropped

Those familiar with the immunoinformatics work of our group will know of our Observed Antibody Space (OAS) and Observed T-cell Receptor Space (OTS) databases, which compile and consistently process V(D)J transcriptomics datasets from across a range of studies on natural immune repertoires. These have provided a central community resource of training data for adaptive immune receptor (AIR) large language models, as well as references for studies aiming to identify clones related to particular disease states.

We are now delighted to release the final installment of our natural AIR database series: introducing OAS-nano. This project was enabled by key collaborative contributions from Klara Kropivsek Brumat and Ario de Marco at the University of Nova Gorica and our industrial partners at AstraZeneca: Olga Obrezanova, Erwin de Genst, and Rebecca Croasdale-Wood.

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One Year Down: Wisdom from a Former OPIG Newbie

With a new cohort of PhD students arriving imminently and my first year coming to a close, I am about to achieve an important milestone: I will no longer be the newest full-time OPIGlet in the group!

Naturally, this makes me extremely qualified to impart wisdom.

In all seriousness, the first year of a PhD has been a strange and wonderful adjustment. I have learned a lot about nanobodies, of course, but I have also learned quite a bit about how to actually do a PhD. So, for the incoming OPIGlets—or anyone else embarking on their first year—here are a few things I wish I had fully appreciated when I started.

Give some structure to all that freedom

One of the strangest things about starting a PhD is suddenly having an almost completely self-guided schedule. It is not something most of us have had to deal with before. Undergrad comes with lectures, tutorials, deadlines, and exams. Most jobs come with meetings, working hours, and someone telling you what needs to be done.

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OPIGlet’s First Conference: PEGS Boston 2026

Hello everyone!

For my very first blog post, I’m excited to share my experience attending and speaking at my first conference.

I was invited to present at the Protein & Antibody Engineering Summit (PEGS) Boston 2026 on behalf of OPIG. The conference ran from May 10–15, and like many antibodies-stream OPIGlets before me, I delivered the OPIG tools short course. This formed part of a three-hour session titled In silico and Machine Learning Tools for Antibody Design and Developability Predictions. The short courses took place on the Sunday, before the main conference officially began on Monday, so somewhat terrifyingly, I gave a conference talk before I had ever attended one.

I arrived in Boston on Saturday after a long day of travel and was pleasantly surprised by a free bus into downtown (thanks, Boston MBTA). After a much-needed sleep, I headed to the conference centre, checked into my hotel (thank you, PEGS team), and tried not to explode from nerves. Thankfully, the talk went well; there were plenty of questions, and I quickly settled into speaking in front of the group. With an audience of around 50 people—only slightly larger than an OPIG group meeting—it felt like familiar territory.

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