Congratulations to our Senior Scientists, Drs. Hansen He and Cheryl Arrowsmith for receiving AACR Scientific Achievement Awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to cancer research. #AACR26
Very cool to be at an over-subscribed hands-on meeting organized by @chemicalprobes.org, GSK and @crick.ac.uk, at which trainees will be guided by experts to learn how to assess the quality of small molecule tools used in the literature. Dozens of Protacs will be assessed today.
A Canadian-led collaboration is leading a global initiative to transform drug discovery with #AI and #OpenScience! 🍁
@uhn.ca, @sickkidsto.bsky.social & @thesgc.bsky.social, are partnering on a $26M grant to support the LIGAND-AI Project—an international effort to advance precision medicine.⬇️
Steve Kerr is an impressive individual. Wins with class, loses with class, and speaks the truth.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=5tmX...
After two years of method development, it’s out. Pretty excited about this method, which not only expedites hit-finding, but also expedites hit verification. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
I don’t read any scientific papers in which the authors use too many significant digits in their figures. It’s a strong proxy indicator of shoddy science and shoddy thinking. On the up side, it means I only need to read a few papers a week.
I moved to Canada from Wales as a young boy, grew up here, and stayed. A great place to live, raise a family, and do science. We’re a multicultural country of immigrants, and that’s not bad, it’s our superpower. Come explore for yourself! @uhnresearch.ca @utoronto.ca
www.science.org/content/arti...
AI in biology: "I read about some new computational method...get excited because it’s exactly what I need...I try the method...Most of the time things don’t work...I have seen this play out so many times my default assumption is nothing is going to work" blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/we-still-c...
Feel good story of day. Went to outdoor movie night at granddaughter’s school yesterday in downtown Toronto. The children and parents comprised a rainbow of colours, speaking a Babel of languages. It was so joyful watching all the children run and play together. Canada has done something right.
If anything, this analysis on “what would have happened if the NIH had spent 40% less over past years” underestimates the impact of NIH on innovation. The most valuable IP walks on two feet. And guess who paid for the training of many industry scientists?
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In selecting an antibody to use for your experiment, you should look in the literature and find the one that one is most cited. NOT!
For the non-Canadians out there, one of our best just died. Ken Dryden was an athlete, scholar, public servant. Bill Bradley is the closest equivalent in the United States. Dryden was my childhood hero. You want to understand a lot about Canada, read his book “The Game”.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
#ICYMI Congratulations to @uhn.ca’s Drs. Cheryl Arrowsmith and John Dick for receiving the Awards for Excellence in Cancer Research from the Canadian Cancer Society!
Read more on their research and awards ➡️ www.uhnresearch.ca/news/recogni...
CACHE 7 is launched with support from the @gatesfoundation.bsky.social and unpublished data from Damian Young at @bcmhouston.bsky.social, Tim Willson @thesgc.bsky.social and Neelagandan Kamaria InSTEM. Design selective PGK2 inhibitors. We'll test them experimentally.
bit.ly/4lnVYOs
A fake Boston Globe front page for April 2017. Headlines include, “deportations to begin: President Trump calls for tripling of ice force, riots continue,” “US soldiers refuse orders to kill Isis families,” “ market sink as trade wars loom,” “ new libel law targets ‘absolute scum’ in press” “ Trump on Nobel Prize shortlist,”
In 2016, before Trump secured the GOP nomination, the Boston Globe made a fictional dystopian front page of what a nightmare world it would be if Trump won. And those just pretty much are our actual headlines now.
Not on the old Canadian TV series ReGenesis! The scientists in that show did controls, had experiments fail, and had great lab hands (grad students would be on set for every lab scene to make sure!)
#HepatitisC is a curable disease, but life-saving treatment is priced out of reach for millions of people who need it.
On #WorldHepatitisDay, join us as we call for access to affordable treatments globally!
👉 Read more about the study presented at the 2025 #EASLCongress in May: bit.ly/4fdYoxS
After 5 years of planning and pilot projects, Target2035, which aims to develop and share pharmacological probes for all human proteins by 2035, is coming out of stealth mode. Our Roadmap for accelerating small molecule hit discovery is now published.
rdcu.be/exxi7
🚀 On July 21, the Chemical Probes Portal celebrates 10 years! Launched after the landmark 2015 @NatChemBio paper by Arrowsmith et al., it now features >1150 compounds, >600 targets, and 1600+ expert reviews—powering better biomedical research. 🧪🔬
👉 chemicalprobes.org #ChemicalBiology @icr.ac.uk
Come join our faculty. Rank is open (assistant, associate, full professor) in experimental physical chemistry.
A department with a distinguished past and bright future.
Groan….
Not a minute goes by over the past 60 years that I have regretted my parents’ decision to move us to Canada. A country that is, and has always been, great. Happy Canada Day to all! 🇨🇦
This is heartbreaking, and shame on Trump, Musk and Rubio. But given USAID and the US people did a huge public service by investing in the infrastructure to distribute medicine in Africa, why can’t Canada step up, leverage this, and fund some of the programs?
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/o...
CACHE4 results are out! All previously known CBLCB ligands shared the same scaffold. Congrats to Keunwan Park who successfully designed a chemically novel series, to the experimental team at @thesgc.bsky.social and thanks to @conscience-network.bsky.social for greasing the wheels! bit.ly/4mYNe3r
Jays. So hot right now. Jays.
#BlueJays @torontobluejays.bsky.social
The United States has levied sanctions on Harvard but not on Russia. A curious set of values.
Waiting for Trump to emerge
@thesgc.bsky.social is generating large/open screening data and inviting data scientists to train their ML models via DREAM challenges:
1- train your model on DEL data
2- retrospectively predict 138 ASMS true positives
3- predict new hits. We will test them and publish together.
bit.ly/3YXVKoT
