Given this is my first ever attempt at a blog post, let alone one on such a highly regarded platform I feel it’s proper that I introduce myself. Hi, my name is Maranga, I am a second-year SABS student starting my DPhil project in Small molecules, and honestly, I really don’t like reading. Especially, scientific journals. Now I can appreciate this does not bode well given my chosen career path, however, my aversion for reading is not new (shoutout to Biff, Chip and Kipper) and hopefully not permanent.
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Antibody-protein binding and conformational changes
I came across a recent paper on the antibody-protein binding and conformational changes. As I work mainly on the binding site/Fv regions of antibodies, I am intrigued to see the role of the constant domains in the overall antibody function.
Continue readingHow COVID-19 affected my (undergrad) masters
The COVID-19 pandemic hit us all in different ways, and this is a short look into how it affected me, a biochemistry undergrad doing my masters project in OPIG.
The first thing that impacted me was the move to working from home. Now you might think that as the group does only computational work that our work might not be too affected by working from home, as all the servers etc. can be accessed remotely. To a certain extent, this is true, it is possible to work from home for starters. Things may well be right as rain for a few people, but it wasn’t for me. I think a lot of people are finding that things take longer when not in the office even under the best circumstances. Technology and equipment can also reduce your productivity quite majorly. Not having a very fast computer (mine is 5 years old and you can tell) or poor chairs that give you backache (living that wooden dining room chair life) are just examples of things that affect your productivity, and also not something most of can do about.
Continue reading10 reasons why LGBT Pride is still necessary
We are starting the LGBT Pride Month, which commemorates the Stonewall Riots (1959). It has rained a lot since that June 51 years ago when a group of transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people rebelled against the police fighting for their rights, inexistent at that time. Fortunately, the situation has changed for the better: in 2011 the UN National Assembly approved the first Human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity resolution, and the difference between sex and gender is not and up to date, 29 different countries recognise same-sex marriage. Therefore, do we still need to celebrate/commemorate/revindicate LGBT Pride? Yes, yes and one thousand times yes. Why? Here I give you only 10 reasons, but it would not be difficult finding 100 more.
Continue readingConverting Miles to Kilometres – An inefficient but neat method
Picture this: You’re a zealous acolyte of the metric system, with a rare affliction that makes multiplying decimal numbers impossible. You’re on holiday in the UK, where road signs give distances in miles. Heathens! How can you efficiently estimate the number of kilometres without multiplying by approximately 1.60934?
Continue readingState of the art in AI for drug discovery: more wet-lab please
The reception of ML approaches for the drug discovery pipeline, especially when focused on the hit to lead optimization process, has been rather skeptical by the medchem community. One of the main drivers for that is the way many ML publications benchmark their models: Historic datasets are split into two parts, with the larger part used to train and the smaller to test ML models. In order to standardize that validation process, computational chemists have constructed widely used benchmark datasets such as the DUD-E set, which is commonly used as a standard for protein-ligand binding classification tasks. Common criticism from medicinal chemists centers on the main problem associated with benchmark datasets: the absence of direct lab validation.
Continue readingFinding The Gene Responsible for Huntington’s Disease – The Story of Nancy Wexler.
Huntington’s Disease – an inherited disorder, which will result in the lack of movement and speech, dementia and ultimately death. Earliest symptoms include lack of coordination and unsteady gait; physical abilities worse until the complete physiological breakdown of the patient’s body. Meanwhile, the mental abilities worsen as well into dementia. Overall, Huntington’s disease results in the death of brain cells.
Continue readingGreen politics, the left, and Brexit
For my first non-technical blogpost, I thought I’d go in for something that we can all agree on and is entirely devoid of controversy: Brexit. Is that growning I hear from the back of the room?
One of my uncles is a professor of sociology; he returned to the UK for the first time in 10 years over Christmas 2019, and naturally we had plenty to talk about. He had left with two kids when I was a lanky, goofy teenager and had returned with four to a lanky, goofy adult. What were most interesting, though, were his views on green politics and their relationship with the traditional left-right spectrum.
Continue readingConsistent plotting with ggplot
Unlike other OPIGlets (looking at you, Claire), I have neither the skill nor the patience to make good figures from scratch. And making good figures — as well as remaking, rescaling and adapting them — is incredibly important, because they play a huge role in the way we communicate our research. So how does an aesthetically impaired DPhil student do her plotting?
Continue readingYou’re getting on my biscuits
Jaffa cakes are God’s own snacks and I will brook no opposition. I don’t mind if they’re McVitie’s brand Jaffa cakes, or Pim’s, the suspicious European variety. Even Sainsbury’s Basics Jaffa cakes float my balloon. Take a soft sponge base, slap some jam and chocolate on that puppy, and you’re golden.
But if you describe your love of these glorious creations, the conversation takes a familiar turn. Are they cakes or are they biscuits? it goes. HMRC tried to classify them as cakes – or was it biscuits? Something like that. It had to do with VAT…
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