Now
As of 1st of July, 2025
Very personal things
The very first day of vacation, flying to my in-laws in few days - rural countryside, heat +40 Celsius, what can possibly go wrong.
Plans for my parental leave are finally settled, September to January it is.
Work
Protein science, SAR driving assays, small molecules, LIMS administration.
On 24th of June, gave a talk at Discovery Europe 2025 (this time, as the year before, in Basel), “Leveraging coupled equilibrium in fragment screening”.
Study and projects
Thoughts about the last year’s Landrum and Riniker paper are still haunting my mind. Way too often I look at correlation plots for predicted absolute binding energies vs experimentally quantified, especially from ML folks. Observable affinity is not a descriptor of the target/ligand pair alone, even if acquired in an experiment of highest excellence and technical vigor (a rare beast itself). I am a bench scientist, I know these all too well.
Reading
I have a horrible habit of reading multiple books in parallel, primarily because I don’t want to laser focus during the evenings and weekends.
It’s a little stupid to talk about books before finishing them, but here’s what I’m reading now:
- “Aurora” by Kim Stanley Robinson. First 1/4 were slow, but I passed the middle now and it is so good. And unique.
- “Free as in Freedom” by Sam Williams. RMS biography, nuff said.
Playing
(…I started “Baldur’s Gate 3” two and a half years ago, and still haven’t finished it.)
Heroes 3, i386-wine runs HoMM3
HD+ on FreeBSD
flawlessly (not a surprise, though).
Sport
Even though I was skeptical, I am doing really good. Consistently, I drag myself to do a workout two times per week and at least once for a 5 to 10 km run. Feels good.
This is the only New Year resolution that did not fail.