We are happy to announce that the CFE system derived from JCVI-syn3A cells is functional, after 3 years of unsuccessful attempts. We used a machine learning tool to optimize this novel system. We hope it can serve as a new CFE platform for synthetic biologists. Thanks to all collaborators involved!
Congratulations to Andrei, Bob and all the collaborators!
The Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is back again with its exciting new Season 3. Just like last season, we are bringing it to you LIVE from Radboud University Nijmegen with a studio audience hosted by Prof. Wilhelm Huck. Of course, we will still follow our tradition of live streaming so that you can enjoy these fascinating lectures from your home, in the lab or on the bus! In this new season, we will dive deep with the exciting topic of Chemistry and AI. From complex learning to using AI for drug discovery, we have a range of topics covered with our speaker lineup!
The fifth episode of Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is on Tuesday 13th June, 20h00 CET!
This episode will be streamed live on our YouTube channel Late Night Conference with WH (don’t forget to subscribe & watch our previous exciting episodes!) from Giga-Bite at Huygensgebouw in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where we are excited to have you in our audience!!
Please note – no ticket is needed if you only want to watch the stream on YouTube!
The digitisation of chemistry and materials science. What are they, exactly? So far this season, we have seen all kinds of blends between computer science and the physical sciences. Our speaker Teodoro Laino works in the industry, and is a Research Scientist at IBM Research Europe in Zurich. Teodoro will guide us towards the lab of the future and we are very much looking forward to finding out what the future looks like!
The RoboRXN project, an innovative technology of Teodoro’s team, is a cloud-based AI-driven autonomous chemical lab, aiming to change the way chemists work. RoboRXN provides a novel way to perform chemical synthesis in an safe, automated environment, that can be accessed remotely! We are only going to say this: RoboRXN will help chemistry transition from a traditional to high-tech environment and will render materials discovery a piece of cake. Join us on June 13th!
To prepare, you can binge watch Season 1 and 2 on our YouTube channel. You may also enjoy this highlight reel from our last seasons. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, as well as subscribe to our mailing list for the latest updates!
See you soon!
The Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is back again with its exciting new Season 3. Just like last season, we are bringing it to you LIVE from Radboud University Nijmegen with a studio audience hosted by Prof. Wilhelm Huck. Of course, we will still follow our tradition of live streaming so that you can enjoy these fascinating lectures from your home, in the lab or on the bus! In this new season, we will dive deep with the exciting topic of Chemistry and AI. From complex learning to using AI for drug discovery, we have a range of topics covered with our speaker lineup!
The fourth episode of Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is on Tuesday 9th May, 20h00 CET!
This episode will be streamed live on our YouTube channel Late Night Conference with WH (don’t forget to subscribe & watch our previous exciting episodes!) from Giga-Bite at Huygensgebouw in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where we are excited to have you in our audience!!
Please note – no ticket is needed if you only want to watch the stream on YouTube!
Our next guest has just received the ERC Starting Grant, and is ready for a new chapter to commence! With her research, and the freedom the ERC Grant has granted her (pun intended), Francesca Grisoni, an Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, is building her own team to explore the untapped potential of AI to discover new therapeutics and medicines.
Francesca will tell us all we need to know about the ‘language of chemistry’, on the 9th of May. The AI renaissance has led to the development of ‘Chemical Language Models’, inspired by natural language processing approaches. These models are used to generate molecules de novo, which hold the desired biological properties. Count us intrigued!
To prepare, you can binge watch Season 1 and 2 on our YouTube channel. You may also enjoy this highlight reel from our last seasons. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, as well as subscribe to our mailing list for the latest updates!
See you soon!
The definition of life is a notoriously difficult definition to get right. In response to that difficulty, some philosophers and scientists have argued that definitions of life are useless to the sciences. In this publication, one of our PhD students, Ludo Schoenmakers, argues against this pessimistic conclusion. He argues that if definitions of life are understood pragmatically, they can be, and in fact are, conducive to scientific progress and they are even relevant to our ethical discussions. So no reason for pessimism!
Congratulations to Ludo!
The Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is back again with its exciting new Season 3. Just like last season, we are bringing it to you LIVE from Radboud University Nijmegen with a studio audience hosted by Prof. Wilhelm Huck. Of course, we will still follow our tradition of live streaming so that you can enjoy these fascinating lectures from your home, in the lab or on the bus! In this new season, we will dive deep with the exciting topic of Chemistry and AI. From complex learning to using AI for drug discovery, we have a range of topics covered with our speaker lineup!
The third episode of Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is on Tuesday 11th April, 20h00 CET!
This episode will be streamed live on our YouTube channel Late Night Conference with WH (don’t forget to subscribe & watch our previous exciting episodes!) from Giga-Bite at Huygensgebouw in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where we are excited to have you in our audience!!
Please note – no ticket is needed if you only want to watch the stream on YouTube!
Get ready, another episode is underway, brought to you live from the US! For S03E03, we will be joined by Connor W. Coley, Assistant Professor at MIT, to discuss how he manages to combine machine learning, automation, and data science with chemistry!
Can you imagine a future where chemical research is conducted by AI? Have you ever been ambushed in your dreams by robots demanding to know how humans will accelerate the discovery of novel molecules? Connor will tell us how science can make all this happen! Join us on the 11th of April, to discuss all things science. Join us, and the next time you have an unwelcome visitor in your dreams, you’ll carry all the knowledge you may need!
To prepare, you can binge watch Season 1 and 2 on our YouTube channel. You may also enjoy this highlight reel from our last seasons. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, as well as subscribe to our mailing list for the latest updates!
See you soon!
Before Life arose, the Earth, just as it is now, hosted an ever-changing environment. Our latest work published in JACS investigates what effect such dynamic conditions impose on the formose reaction, a model prebiotic reaction network. By applying random fluctuations to the formose reaction in a flow reactor, we show in detail how its composition responds to varying timescales and magnitudes in these perturbances. Our investigation further led us to discover that the reaction behaves in a modular manner, a remarkable characteristic which it shares with biological reaction networks. These observations demonstrate the importance of understanding the role of environmental dynamics in sculpting the composition, structure and behaviour of the chemical processes destined to form the first Life.
Congratulations to Peer, Lena, Will and Wilhelm!
This week Oliver’s goodbye party was organised in our department. Oliver Maguire was part of the Prebiotic origin of reaction networks subgroup. Oliver’s former students Iris, Josien and Mathieu organised a quiz about Oliver and here are some interesting facts: during his 6-year stay in the Huck group as a postdoc, Oliver supervised 11 students and measured around 10 000 NMR samples!! It’s going to be quite difficult to beat these numbers!
Thank you Oliver for all the great discussions, work and jokes! We wish you all the best for your future career. You for sure will be missed!
The Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is back again with its exciting new Season 3. Just like last season, we are bringing it to you LIVE from Radboud University Nijmegen with a studio audience hosted by Prof. Wilhelm Huck. Of course, we will still follow our tradition of live streaming so that you can enjoy these fascinating lectures from your home, in the lab or on the bus! In this new season, we will dive deep with the exciting topic of Chemistry and AI. From complex learning to using AI for drug discovery, we have a range of topics covered with our speaker lineup!
The second episode of Late Night Conference with Wilhelm Huck is on Tuesday 14th March, 20h00 CET!
This episode will be streamed live on our YouTube channel Late Night Conference with WH (don’t forget to subscribe & watch our previous exciting episodes!) from Giga-Bite at Huygensgebouw in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where we are excited to have you in our audience!!
Please note – no ticket is needed if you only want to watch the stream on YouTube!
Our second episode is all about organic chemistry; with a twist. Robert Pollice, Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen, will join us on the 14th of March to share how advances in computing and robotics can revolutionise organic chemistry by accelerating the design of new catalysts.
Robert’s research can be described as nothing but state-of-the-art and ambitious. In his quest to design molecular catalysts for organic reactions, he is fusing the realms of simulation and lab automation to achieve accelerated discovery of new catalysts. Are you excited? We are!
To prepare, you can binge watch Season 1 and 2 on our YouTube channel. You may also enjoy this highlight reel from our last seasons. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, as well as subscribe to our mailing list for the latest updates!
See you soon!
This week we said goodbye to our postdoc Jessie van Buggenum who stayed in the group for a few years! Jessie was part of the Multi-omic measurements of cellular dynamics subgroup and was working on cellular signalling networks. Besides the hard work in the lab and behind the computer analysing the data, Jessie was the person who was taking all the group member pictures throughout the years! For who future career Jessie decided to go to industry.
Thank you Jessie for all the great time in the group and we wish you all the best in the future career! We will miss you!
On February 11 we are celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science! For this occasion we prepared a special video dedicated to all women and girls in science featuring our brilliant female group members. Hopefully this message will reach people at the right moment!
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Our labs and offices are located in the Huygens building. A detailed route description to the Huygens building is available here. Reach us by car, train/bus