CCK-20: Greg Landrum – Monday 20 November 17:00 GMT, Stats + Zoom

TL;DR: CCK-20: Greg Landrum — the next in our series of meetings for computational chemists, cheminformaticians, and molecular modelers, is on Monday November 20th, 2023, at 5:00 pm GMT in person in the Large Lecture Theatre of the Department of Statistics, 24-29 St Giles’, Oxford, OX1 3LB. Refreshments at 4:30 pm. Attendance is free, and open to all. Register for Zoom (100 online attendees max).

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The next Comp Chem Kitchen, CCK-20, is on Monday, November 20th, 2023, at 5-6 pm GMT. We’re delighted to announce Dr Greg Landrum from ETH Zürich will be speaking. We will be in the Large Lecture Theatre on the Lower Ground floor of the Department of Statistics, 24-29 St Giles’. Join us early for refreshments—including beer—from ~4:30 pm, in the Ground Floor Social Area in Stats. Attendance is free and open to all.

We will also be broadcasting on Zoom, but you must register for Zoom first—and there are only 100 spaces on Zoom.

5 pm: Dr Greg Landrum: “Please stop combining data from different IC50 assays”.

Dr Greg Landrum

Greg is the lead developer of the widely-used open source cheminformatics API, RDKit. Greg is a Senior Scientist at ETH Zürich, Switzerland; and Founder and Managing Director of T5 Informatics GmbH. Greg has been a Senior Advisor to KNIME since 2019. Greg was a Principal Investigator at the Konstanz Research School for Chemical Biology from 2014-2020; and Global Head of Chemical Information Systems for Novartis (2011-2016).

Partially supported by CECAM:

CCK-17

TL;DR: CCK-17, will be on Thursday, November 28th, 2019, at 5:00 pm in the Seminar Room, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QU. Free CCK-17 tickets are available.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Dr Wendy Warr (Wendy Warr and Associates, UK): “My Way”

“Comp Chem Kitchen”, CCK-17, will be at 5-6 pm on Thursday, November 28th, 2019, in the Seminar Room, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QU. Our main talk will be a little different from our usual talks. We are delighted to announce Oxford Chemistry alumna, and just-announced winner of the 2020 Herman Skolnick Award, Dr Wendy Warr will be speaking:

Dr Wendy Warr
  • I would like to run through my very varied career experiences but then relate them to what I have done much more recently, and, ultimately, what current students might do in future. For example, the introduction of high throughput screening (HTS) in about 1989 led me to travel around the United States looking at robotically controlled compound stores. I have always had a particular interest in chemical reaction handling and that relates to the current revival in interest in retrosynthesis software, and to AI for reaction prediction. In about 1993-1996, I became a combinatorial chemistry guru. That relates to robotic synthesis also. My very early interest in chemical structure representation (1968!), and later in graphics-based systems for structure searching, relates to the current interest in huge databases of virtual molecules (e.g., Enamine REAL), big data, the need for ultrafast structure searching systems, and de novo drug design.

CAREER HISTORY

  • January 1992 – present, President, Wendy Warr & Associates
    • Wendy Warr & Associates supplies business and competitive intelligence services to a broad spectrum of clients in the United States, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and Asia. Our success stems from our extensive network and our specialized knowledge of publishing, cheminformatics, and computational chemistry. Pharmaceutical companies, venture capitalists, publishers, software companies, and scientific database producers have benefited from our expert counsel and services in recent years.
  • 1972 – 1991, ICI Pharmaceuticals
    • 1986 – 1992, Manager, Information Services (managed department of 50+ people)
    • 1984 – 1986, Manager, Research Information
    • 1979 – 1984, Senior Systems Analyst/Project Manager for Chemical Information
    • 1976 – 1979, Senior Information Scientist and Systems Analyst
    • 1972 – 1976, Information Scientist
  • 1970 – 1972, Robinson Brothers Ltd., Research Chemist
  • 1968 – 1970, University of Oxford, Part-time Research Assistant, Experimental Information Unit

Lightning Talks

  • Richard Gowers (Senior Software Engineer, NextMove Software):Element Parsing Served Five Ways
    • This talk will explore different levels of optimising a seemingly simple task. Along the way various algorithms used in chemical similarity, bioinformatics and text mining will be discussed.
      • Richard is a Senior Software Engineer at NextMove Software, which develops cheminformatics solutions deployed globally at 9 of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies. He is also the lead developer of MDAnalysis, a Python toolkit for… MD analysis, fancy that.
  • Andre Frade (DPhil student, Department of Chemistry):From molecular diagrams to material properties: development of new tools and frameworks”.

Refreshments will be provided, including beer.

We would like to thank the University of Oxford MPLS Network and Interdisciplinary Fund (NIF) for making CCK possible.

Continue reading

Job: Computational Chemist at Oxford Drug Design

Oxford Drug Design is a unique biotechnology company. Supported by a proprietary set of computational chemistry methods developed in-house over the past 15 years, we are discovering new antibiotics to address the urgent threat of multi-drug resistant infections. Following success in obtaining funding from Innovate UK, the UK’s Innovation agency, we are expanding our computer-aided drug design (CADD) team.

Your Role:

  • Develop and validate novel CADD methodology in the areas of machine learning, statistical methods, chemogenomics and computational chemistry, working in a multidisciplinary team of internal and external colleagues, and be a key contributor to their success.
  • Use a diverse array of computational technology to devise hypotheses for structure-activity relationships and compounds to test these hypotheses, focused on our antibiotic drug discovery portfolio.
  • Maintain and build our internal cheminformatics databases and search technologies.
  • Maintain awareness of the latest technologies and developments in CADD and project areas.
  • Maintain an internal and external scientific presence by authoring significant scientific presentations and publications. 

Who you are:

You will hold a PhD (or equivalent experience) in computer science, machine learning, computational chemistry, or a related field. Industry experience would be an advantage. You are expected to have a high degree of independence and self-motivation. Ideally, your background would include some of the following:

  • Expertise in machine learning and other statistical approaches to data analysis and model generation.
  • Expertise in scientific computing, and good programming skills (Python, C++ and Java skills are particularly relevant).
  • Expertise in using cheminformatics techniques and relational databases.
  • Knowledge of computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry concepts is an advantage.
  • Very good written and verbal communication skills.

Please note that candidates must be eligible and able to work in the UK. Please include details of your eligibility with your application.

To apply, please send a CV and covering letter by 23 April-2019, quoting reference CC19-1, to: [email protected]

Oxford Drug Design Ltd., Oxford Centre for Innovation, New Road, Oxford, OX1 1BY, UK Telephone: +44 (0)1865 261469

CCK-14 Hackathon-2: 13 December 2018

TL;DR: CCK-14 Hackathon-2:  Thursday, December 13th, 2018, from 10 am – 5 pm in the Computer Suite, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QU, will be followed by a wrap up in Biochemistry’s Seminar Room 5-6 pm. Bring your own ideas and programming problems, and join experts from the Cambridge Structural Database to learn about their Python API. Pizza provided. Hackathon tickets are limited, so please book by December 11th, 2018. Hackathon tickets are limited, so please book by December 11th, 2018.

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Please join us for our next “Comp Chem Kitchen” CCK Hackathon, 10 am – 5 pm on Thursday, December 13th, 2018, in the Computer Suite, Department of Biochemistry, South Parks Road, Oxford. Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre will be present to help out on projects using the the CSD Python API.

Registration now open: places are limited; please register before December 11th, 2018.

The hackathon will follow this format:

In advance: assembly of ideas and teams via website. On the day:

  • 10.00 am: Introduction. 
    • Assemble 4-8 teams with some expertise in each.
  • 10.30 am – 12.30 pm: Hacking – design and tools
  • 12.30 – 1.00 pm: Five min updates / requests for input and help
  • 1.00 – 2.00 pm: Lunch
  • 2.00 – 5.00 pm: Hacking
  • 5.00 – 6.00 pm: Lightning summaries of hacked projects.

Pizza and refreshments will be provided.

 

We would like to thank the University of Oxford MPLS Network and Interdisciplinary Fund for making CCK possible.

About CCK

Comp Chem Kitchen is a regular forum and seminar series to hear about and discuss computational methods for tackling problems in chemistry, biochemistry and drug discovery. It focuses principally on cheminformatics, computational chemistry, and molecular modelling, and overlaps with neighboring areas such as materials properties and bioinformatics.

We’re keen to encourage people involved in coding and methods development (i.e. hackers, in the original untarnished sense of the word) to join us. Our hope is that we will share best practices, even code snippets and software tools, and avoid re-inventing wheels.

In addition to local researchers, we invite speakers from industry and non-profits from time to time, and occasionally organize software demos and tutorials.

If you’re interested in giving a talk, here are some possible topics:

  • Software development (e.g.: Python, C, C++, CUDA, shell, Matlab);
  • Optimizing force field parameters & EVB models;
  • Cheminformatics (e.g.: RDKit);
  • X-ray and NMR crystallography, including small molecule and macromolecular;
  • Protein & RNA modeling, including Molecular Dynamics;
  • Virtual screening and Docking;
  • Machine Learning;
  • Quantum Methods, including DFT.

Bring your laptops, by the way, if you have something you’d like to show!

Please pass this message on to friends, colleagues, and students who may be interested too!

The main CCK web site is: http://compchemkitchen.org/
Follow us on Twitter: @CompChemKitchen
See you soon! We’re looking forward to seeing and hearing about the diverse range of computational molecular science that you’re cooking up…

—Garrett, Richard, Phil

[email protected]
[email protected]
philip.biggin@bioch.ox.ac.uk

Announcement: Course on Machine Learning for Chemoinformatics

Dr Martyn Winn would like to announce the following course:

Machine Learning for Chemoinformatics
Location: RAL, Harwell Campus
Dates: 6th – 10th August 2018
Registration fee:  academic £150, commercial £1000

The course covers all of the major methods in machine learning for classification and regression, with examples taken from problems in chemoinformatics. It has been designed for data analysts working in the pharmaceutical industry, but would also be useful to chemists interested in advanced data analysis. The course includes practical examples using commonly available Python packages.

For further information and to register, go to:

Cheers
Martyn

Dr. Martyn Winn
STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, WA4 4AD, U.K.
Tel: +44 1925 603455 (DL)   or   +44 1235 567865 (RcaH)
E-mail: [email protected]       Skype: martyn.winn

CCK-7

TL;DR: CCK-7, the 7th of our new series of meetings for computational chemists, cheminformaticians, and molecular modelers, is on Thursday, March 16th, 2017, at 5 pm in the Abbot’s Kitchen, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QR. Free tickets are available.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Please join us for our next “Comp Chem Kitchen”, CCK-7, at 5-6 pm on Thursday, March 16th, 2017, in the Abbot’s Kitchen, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford. We are really pleased to announce Prof. Val Gillet, Professor of Cheminformatics at the Information School, University of Sheffield UK, will be speaking:

  • Prof. Val Gillet (Information School, University of Sheffield): “From spectral clustering to spectral geometry: applications in chemoinformatics“. The talk will focus on two distinct but related projects. The first describes the development of spectral clustering for large datasets of up to 100K compounds. One of the main advantages of spectral clustering over more conventional methods is that it permits overlapping clusters, whereby a molecule may belong to more than one cluster. It is also straight-forward to implement clustering with an asymmetric similarity index such as the Tversky index which offers some advantages for the clustering of molecular fragments. We also describe the development of a method for alignment-independent molecular shape comparison based on spectral geometry techniques and present preliminary results for this approach.

Lightning Talks:

  • Max Pillong (Novartis, Basel) “HSM: A novel peptide descriptor and its application to in silico peptide design
  • Dr Anthony Bradley (Project Leader – OxXChem at University of Oxford): “Hands-on: introduction to Git“.
  • Susan Leung (OPIG, University of Oxford): “Hands-on: Using Pandas with RDKit“.

Get in touch if you would like to give a 5 minute talk at a future CCK on your latest research or give a quick demo your latest programming project, or even to nominate someone (students, postdocs, professionals, PIs, Emeritus Professors). The talks usually resemble one of the following styles:

  • an overview of computational chemistry in your research;
  • a (live!) demonstration of some software that you are developing or using; or
  • a summary of a computational chemistry paper, method, programming language, or tool that you’ve seen recently.

Refreshments will be provided, including beer.

We would like to thank the University of Oxford MPLS Network and Interdisciplinary Fund for making CCK possible.

About CCK

Comp Chem Kitchen is a regular forum and seminar series to hear about and discuss computational methods for tackling problems in chemistry, biochemistry and drug discovery. It focuses principally on cheminformatics, computational chemistry, and molecular modelling, and overlaps with neighboring areas such as materials properties and bioinformatics.

We’re keen to encourage people involved in coding and methods development (i.e. hackers, in the original untarnished sense of the word) to join us. Our hope is that we will share best practices, even code snippets and software tools, and avoid re-inventing wheels.

In addition to local researchers, we invite speakers from industry and non-profits from time to time, and occasionally organize software demos and tutorials.

If you’re interested in giving a talk, here are some possible topics:

  • Software development (e.g.: Python, C, C++, CUDA, shell, Matlab);
  • Optimizing force field parameters & EVB models;
  • Cheminformatics (e.g.: RDKit);
  • X-ray and NMR crystallography, including small molecule and macromolecular;
  • Protein & RNA modeling, including Molecular Dynamics;
  • Virtual screening and Docking;
  • Machine Learning;
  • Quantum Methods, including DFT.

Bring your laptops, by the way, if you have something you’d like to show!

 

Want to speak? Ideas for speakers?

* If you have ideas for speakers, or would like to give a talk, let us know. We also invite lightning talks of 5 minutes (or fewer) from attendees, so if you have some cool code you’ve been working on and would like to demo, bring your laptop, smartphone, tablet, (wearable?) and tell us all about it. *

Please pass this message on to friends, colleagues, and students who may be interested too!

The main CCK web site is: http://compchemkitchen.org/
Follow us on Twitter: @CompChemKitchen
See you soon! We’re looking forward to seeing and hearing about the diverse range of computational molecular science that you’re cooking up…

—Garrett, Richard, Phil and Rob

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

“Mathematical Chemistry and ChemoInformatics”

Announcement forwarded on behalf of Prof. Jotun Hein <[email protected]>, Chair of Bioinformatics, Department of Statistics:

Mathematical Chemistry and ChemoInformatics

Would you like an introduction to mathematical chemistry based on the material from a recent book? Then you may want to come to the talk Monday 7th November 2-4 PM in IT Teaching Room, Department of Statistics.

The talk is given by Jotun Hein and William Kurdahl from the science book discussion club.

The book covers the combinatorics of molecules (especially Polya-Counting), their embedding in 3D Euclidian Space, Chirality, Stereoisomers and a series of application using the program MOLGEN. We are motived to study this book since William is working on models of origin life involving small molecules, but it is obvious that the field could be a rich source of statistical problems to work on.

The slides can be found here:  http://preview.tinyurl.com/MoleculeCombinatorics

Announcing the “Molecule Combinatorics” and “Chemoinformatics” Discussion Group

Our CCK members might be interested to know Prof. Jotun Hein, Chair of Bioinformatics in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues have decided to spend Michaelmas Term, 2016, on the topics of “Molecule Combinatorics” and “Chemoinformatics”.  We will try to focus on the computational and combinatorial aspects of these topics.

We meet at 9 am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 90 minutes in the Department of Statistics, and typically spend about 2 hours preparing. It will probably take about 10 hours per week to participate.  We plan to send a review of the first book we will be reading, “Mathematical Chemistry and Chemoinformatics” (2013), to SIAM Review, who have already indicated they are eager to publish it.  Jotun also plans to give a 90 minute summary lecture around December 1st, and will also arrange a 4-5 day mini-workshop on the topic at the end of term (possibly November 28th).

  1. Some information on the planned literature can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/http-molecombi-coml
  2. An example of an earlier summary lecture can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/Leimkuhler;
  3. and of a mini-workshop at Slide 6 of the above Lecture;
  4. and of a review (we are still working on the “Molecular Dynamics” review) at: http://preview.tinyurl.com/steel16bookreview.

If you are interested in participating, please email Jotun Hein at hein AT stats.ox.ac.uk