{"id":10321,"date":"2023-09-12T14:13:25","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T13:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/?p=10321"},"modified":"2023-09-12T14:20:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T13:20:02","slug":"opig-retreat-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/opig-retreat-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"OPIG Retreat 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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, \u2018conference-esque\u2019 academic immersion, a reconnection with nature in the British countryside, and of course, a bit of fun. It is fair to say OPIG Retreat \u201823 delivered on all accounts, leaving the OPIGlets refreshed and ready for what the next year may bring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Our journey began with an uneventful coach trip, with respect to the return journey (more on that later), up the motorway and round Birmingham on Tuesday afternoon. All parties arrived and those of us new to the experience soon understood the \u2018retreat\u2019 or reconnection with nature side of things as soon as we stepped off the bus. Trees, fields, cattle and farmyard manure surrounded us. The views from our new home were spectacular, as to be expected in Shropshire, and phone signal, as to be expected in Shropshire\u2026was sparse.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the military-like efficiency OPIG is famous for, we staked out our quarters: Fen\u2019s nest, Hopes Dale, Wenlock Edge and Pudding Bowl being but a few of these names, shot-gunned our respective top bunks, deposited belongings and assembled in the cellar turned auditorium at 1740 hours for the start of the talks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guy got us started, guiding us gallantly through some of the more nefarious uses of artificial intelligence tools by those who seek to do harm or just want to watch the world burn. This was followed by the first of many excellent post talk discussions, with Garrett reflecting on the use, and misuse of fire, and the many parallels there. Steph had the second stint. The topic was ethnic diversity in biomedical research, from the academic community conducting, to the cohorts involved in clinical trials, the impacts and then the future of regulation. Intense discussion was followed up by takeaway Thai dinner in the great hall. <\/p>\n\n\n

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The second session of the evening was science heavy. Bora discussed a recent study on antibody humanness and stability (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41551-023-01079-1<\/a>) that was of interest to many of us in the audience. Successively, Garrett kickstarted some discussion around small molecules by discussing how can molecules be better represented which translates into better models. We had a short break, then Lewis, a cup of coffee in hand, serious look on face, talked pollen. Tears, \u2018bad\u2019 antibodies, and parasitic worms all featured in a journey of one man\u2019s silent struggle with hay fever and antihistamines. You had to be there. The evening was closed by Olly the elder – fellowship applications were on the agenda, and we were thoroughly treated to some excellent nuggets of advice, anecdotes, and more post-talk discussion.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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Day one, nearly done. Bed was forbidden, as twenty past the hour of twenty-one \u2018twas the time for enforced fun! An array of board games and then finally to bed. Now, this blog post has only three authors, so we cannot speak for the nighttime experiences of all OPIGlets. However, that first night led some of us to question whether the beautiful Manor of Wilderhope was indeed haunted. Howls of maniacal laughter drifted from the spiral staircase to our beds. Random nonsensical German and Portuguese words echoed in the darkness of some dorms and there was many a rushing of water and turning of taps acutely heard by those of us sleeping near the toilets. However, the pleasant evening temperatures and fresh country air were enjoyed by all, and we rose for day two ready for battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Breakfast. Then straight into the talks. Alissa presented on her recent blog post detailing how we can overcome limited data in ML approaches (https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/machine-learning-strategies-to-overcome-limited-data-availability\/<\/a> ), followed by Arun who talked about considering expressiveness of graph neural networks used in chemistry and molecular tasks. Nele delved deep into a diffusion-based method for all-atom antibody generation (https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2308.05027<\/a>). In addition to going through the paper, this included some brief and useful notes on diffusion models, much appreciated by those of us still holding on to notions of semi-permeable membranes and glucose gradients.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the break, Dan spoke about his recent work on TCR specificity and clustering models (https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2023.08.04.551940v1<\/a>), and then Carlos took the stage. Picture the following: Cows. A popular fast-food outlet. Block based flow diagrams and GPU optimisation. Many in the audience were stunned. Others, given the proximity to lunch and the delicious visuals, were just plain hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabian followed, and it was colourful. At this point we should alert readers that it was not just the opinion of fellow OPIGlets and kudos up for grab in these talks. We had been informed by the organisers that there were several prizes on offer, voted for by the audience, and each related to a theme such as best storyteller, most entertaining, best haircut, and most colourful slides. This talk had been designed solely for the purpose of winning the latter, and the stall was set out from the start. The topic of protein flexibility was lost amidst a sea of colour that ensured when the dust settled, our man had his prize. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Quick break, then Martin talked about his recently released tool, ‘PoseBusters’ (https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2308.05777) and Leo gave conference feedback from his recent trip to ICML in Hawaii. Jay finished the morning talks by speaking about the history of sequence search and comparison. This talk had everything. We had colours, sequences, 1980\u2019s GUI interfaces, celebrity photos, and BLAST. Unsurprisingly Jay took home the narrator prize.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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Time for lunch, after which we all had the afternoon off. Some of us slept, others worked on our talks, while others went for a walk and soaked up some more nature. A precious few OPIGlets waited their turn to make dinner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cooking for over 30 hungry PhD and Post Docs, each with their own dietary requirements is no easy task, particularly in a small kitchen under the guidance of Olly and Teo, whilst following the printed-out, intricate, vegan-friendly recipes of our Scottish head chef who was no longer able to make the trip. However, both nights went rather well, and the food was delicious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evening talks on day 2 were of a similarly high standard. Henriette and Anna joined forces to tackle all things coeliac. Food, history, shopping, medicine, and immunology were all covered in a fantastic overview that prompted engaged discussion and many further questions. Matt finished off the evening discussing the power, potential, career benefits and daily difficulties of building and maintaining publicly available databases. Some of which you may be familiar with:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n