All MGMS Seminars are free of charge and open to all.
Please register below to attend this event.
The MGMS was formed in 1981 to bring together scientists working in different fields of study—such as chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics and computer science—who have a common interest in computational molecular modelling and molecular graphics. One of our activities is to organize MGMS Lecture Tours to highlight cutting-edge research in the field.
We are pleased to announce the 2024 MGMS Virtual Lecture Tour, featuring presentations from Judith Günther (Bayer), Uta Lessel (Boehringer Ingelheim), Matthew Grayson (University of Bath, 2023 MGMS Frank Blaney Award Winner) and Andreas Bender (University of Cambridge & Pangea Bio). The event will take place on zoom on 11th November 2024, and will be followed by the MGMS AGM.
Please register below to attend. Zoom connection details will be sent shortly before the event.
Monday, November 11th, 2024
- 2:00-2:15 pm BST: Introduction
- 2:15-3:00 pm BST: Judith Günther (Bayer) & Uta Lessel (Boehringer Ingelheim): “CACHE and the need for benchmarking – an industry perspective”
- 3:00-3:45 pm BST: Matthew Grayson (University of Bath): “Machine Learning and Molecular Modelling: A Synergistic Approach to Rapid Reactivity Design”
- 3:45-4:30 pm BST: Andreas Bender (University of Cambridge & Pangea Bio), Title TBC
- 4:30 pm BST: MGMS Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Note: This agenda is provisional and subject to change before the event.
About Speakers
Andreas Bender
Professor of Molecular Informatics, University of Cambridge
Chief Informatics and Technology Officer (CITO) at Pangea Bio
Dr Andreas Bender is Chief Technology & Informatics Officer (CITO) at PangeAI, part of Pangea Bio, as well as Professor for Molecular Informatics at Cambridge University.
Andreas’ research is applying data analysis/ML/AI techniques to life science data for the selection and design of safer and more efficacious drugs. He published more than 300 articles in the area and his work has been cited more than 15,000 times. Previously, Andreas was a Director for Digital Life Sciences at Nuvisan in Berlin, as well as an Associate Director for Data Science and AI in the Clinical Pharmacology & Safety Sciences group at AstraZeneca. He was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Lead Discovery Informatics group at Novartis in Cambridge/MA as well as an Assistant Professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands before his current position in Cambridge.
On the entrepreneurial side, Andreas was involved in setting up Healx Ltd. (for data-driven drug repurposing) and PharmEnable Ltd. (for designing novel chemistry for targets that are difficult to drug conventionally), both based in Cambridge/UK. Andreas studied chemistry in Berlin, Frankfurt and Dublin and received his PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Matthew Grayson
Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), University of Bath
After graduating with 1st Class Honours in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, Matt obtained his PhD at Cambridge in 2014 with Prof. Jonathan Goodman. In 2014, he took up an independent Girton College Research Fellowship at Cambridge. As a recipient of a Lindemann Trust Fellowship, Matt conducted postdoctoral research in the group of Prof. Kendall Houk at the University of California, Los Angeles during the full calendar year of 2015 before returning to Cambridge to continue his fellowship.
Matt joined the University of Bath as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in July 2018. In 2021, he was awarded a University of Bath Doctoral Recognition Award for his dedication to doctoral supervision. Matt was promoted to Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in January 2022. In 2023, Matt was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Hickinbottom Prize and the MGMS Frank Blaney Award.
Judith Günther
Senior Principal Scientist, Bayer
Judith Günther is a senior principal scientist within Bayer’s Computational Molecular Design team, where she works on modern in silico methods for drug discovery and their efficient application in pharma pipeline projects. Her designs impacted Bayer’s clinical pipeline in the areas of women’s health as well as oncology. She had a driving role in the discovery of zabedosertib, currently in phase II clinical trials. Judith is particularly interested in workflows that enable faster DMTA cycles, in the integration of both phenotypical data and chemical biology approaches into drug discovery processes, and in implementing AI algorithms at a project level. For her contributions to digital transformation at Bayer, she was awarded “Distinguished Woman in Data Science “. Through her engagement in the CACHE initiative, as well as her membership of the SGC board of directors, she aims to foster open science in industry-academic collaborations.
Judith studied chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt and holds a PhD from the Philipps University of Marburg.
Uta Lessel
Principal Scientist, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma
Uta Lessel studied Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Düsseldorf and received a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry. As a Postdoc at the German Research Institute for Biotechnology in Brunswick and at the University of Cologne she focused on Molecular Modelling. In 1998 she joined the Computational Chemistry group at Boehringer Ingelheim. She is a Principal Scientist and supports early projects in different therapeutic areas by developing and applying state of the art in silico methods for an efficient detection and design of new drugs. Her special interest is virtual screening in large fragment spaces. For the development of the proprietary Boehringer Ingelheim fragment space (BICLAIM) she received the German research award from Boehringer Ingelheim in 2009. Currently, Uta represents Boehringer Ingelheim in the governing board of the Cache initiative aiming at a productive benchmarking option to foster the development of new computational hit finding methods.
Registration
In case of any problems with registration please contact us directly on: secretary@mgms.org
Past MGMS Lecture Tours
| 2023 | Prof. Andrew Hopkins, Exscientia |
| 2022 | Prof. Rommie Amaro, University of California, zoom talk recording |
| 2021 | Prof. Graham Richards, University of Oxford, zoom talk recording |
| 2020 | Professor Rebecca Wade, Heidelberg University (ZMBH), zoom talk recording |
| 2018 | Dr. David Glowacki, University of Bristol, UK |
| 2015 | Professor Dr Gisbert Schneider, ETH Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2014 | Prof. Arthur J. Olson, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA |
| 2012 | Prof. Modesto Orozco, Group Leader, Molecular Modelling and Bioinformatics, Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) |
| 2011 | Prof. Tim Clark, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen- Nurnberg, Germany, and Centre for Molecular Design, University of Portsmouth |