On 16th July, fresh after England’s clean defeat to Argentina, OPIG took to the high seas. The OPIGlets pooled our resources and procured punts from many different berths. Organised by Admiral Alexander Hasson, we departed from the Cherwell boathouse and shipped out upriver to the Vicky Arms.
My DPhil uses network representations of protein complexes to predict drug targets, so when a summer school on complex networks came up, I wanted to see what tools and ideas from the broader field I might be missing. The Lake Como School on Complex Networks brought together students and postdocs from universities around the world to discuss recent applications and future possibilities using networks. This was the school’s 10-year anniversary, so we were honoured to have many of the lectures given by founding members of the society.
This month we said Goodbye to a few OG members of OPIG 🙁 among them was one of my favourites, Lucy! (should I apologise to the others?)
Lucy did some amazing work on improving output of generative models during her time in OPIG. One of her recent works involved increasing the plausibility of 3D molecular diffusion models using distorted training data. Check it out here.
Early in her PhD she worked on PointVS with Jack Scantlebury. PointVS is a machine learning scoring function that predicts protein-small molecule binding affinity by learning actual binding physics rather than dataset biases.
Word on the street is she also has some secret works in the making…
Continue readingOn Thursday 17th April, a group of us made the journey ‘up the hill’ to the Richard Doll building to attend an immunology masterclass from Professor Abul Abbas. Prof. Abbas is an emeritus professor in Pathology at UCSF and author of numerous core textbooks including Basic Immunology: Functions and Disorders of the Immune System.
The whole-day course consisted of a series of lectures covering core topics in immunology, from innate immunity and antigen presentation through to B/T cell subsets, autoimmunity, and immunotherapy.
Continue readingFor the past few months, OPIGlets Gemma, Charlie and Alexi have been engaged in a collaboration between scientists from Oxford and artists connected to Central St Martins art college in London. This culminated in February with the publication of a zine detailing our work, and a final symposium where we presented our projects to the wider community.
This collaboration was led by organisers Barney Hill and Nina Gonzalez-Park and comprised a series of workshops in various locations across Oxford and London, where the focus was to discuss commonalities between contemporary artistic and scientific research and the concept of transdisciplinary work. Additionally, scientists and artists were paired up to explore shared interests, with the goal of creating a final piece to exhibit.
We recently contributed to a communication in Nature Biotechnology detailing an upcoming competition coordinated by Specifica to evaluate the relative performance of in vitro display and in silico methods at identifying target-specific antibody binders and performing downstream antibody candidate optimisation.
Following in the footsteps of tournaments such as the Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP), which have led to substantial breakthroughs in computational methods for biomolecular structure prediction, the AI-ntibody initiative seeks to establish a periodic benchmarking exercise for in silico antibody discovery/design methods. It should help to identify the most significant breakthroughs in the space and orient future methods’ development.
Continue reading“They don’t make them like they used to!”
With much experience of all things farcical, it was my delight to have returned just in time for the 2024 edition of OPIG’s Tour de Farce, which took place on 11th July. This year’s route was 8 miles long and encompassed four of the finest establishments Oxford has to offer (nothing “unusually conservative” to see here Eoin).
Continue readingOn 5th April 2024, over 60 researchers braved the train strikes and gusty weather to gather at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford and engage in a day full of scientific talks, posters and discussions on the topic of adaptive immune receptor (AIR) analysis!
With the new academic year approaching, OPIG flew off to the rural paradise of Wilderhope Manor in sunny Shropshire for their annual group getaway. The goal of this retreat was assumed to be a mixture of team building, ‘conference-esque’ academic immersion, a reconnection with nature in the British countryside, and of course, a bit of fun. It is fair to say OPIG Retreat ‘23 delivered on all accounts, leaving the OPIGlets refreshed and ready for what the next year may bring.
Continue readingI don’t believe punting comes up much in Biggie Smalls’ raps (we live a pretty shielded life here in Oxford). Nevertheless, here are some photos from our recent OPunting trip, paired, very questionably and entirely for the pun’s sake, with some of the titles of songs he wrote/featured in.
Continue reading