Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!

― Terry Pratchett, Wee Free Men 2003

Working on new antivirals with the whole team in the @asapdiscovery.bsky.social consortium is incredible, great science, superb committed team all focussed on current and potential future viral threats. Front rank science applied to reducing human suffering ✅.

This is why we do medicinal chemistry: www.science.org/content/blog.... @dndi.org

Nitrogen, Ammonia, and the Strait of Hormuz

Chemistry in current events: the connections between fertilizer, the Haber-Bosch process, and the Persian Gulf. Read this and your knowledge will exceed that of most of our current political leadership after only a few minutes of light work:

If you have anything to do with young people(I’m a a High School Trustee, my wife is a Girl Guide Commissioner) the scars are still clear, if you take even a moment to look.

This:

1 We know that “data” is plural but we were in a hurry.

Something incredible I learned (re-learned?) tonight is that the blog post where the first SARS-CoV-2 genome was shared - six years ago on Saturday - included the most iconic footnote of all time

Fifteen Years

If you’ve ever worked in cancer research, this: xkcd.com/3172/

Save the date! Next year's European #RDKit UGM will take place from 16-18 September in Darmstadt, Germany.
Pre-registration will open in early 2026.

A screenshot showing that my "rdkit_new" conda environment is running the 2025.09.1 RDKit release

Yay! #RDKit

Great news! 🎉

Following an independent expert review, we have formally nominated the broad-spectrum pan-coronavirus antiviral ASAP-0017445 as a pre-clinical drug candidate.

🔗Read the press release here: dndi.org/press-releas...

I first wrote about some of the early stages of this project in March 2020 (cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...).
I've been privileged to follow along since then (cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...).
Congratulations to everyone who contributed.

It’s the travel choice of the future…

And Milan Centrale is an architectural wonder!

Thanks to @greglandrum.bsky.social and all the #RDKit crew another great UGM,now back along the Elbe as the sun sets:

Members of Dr. White’s lab, from left to right, wearing white lab coats: Briana McGovern, BS, Senior Research Associate; Meg Gordon, BA, Research Associate; Dr. White; Dr. Suazo; Jared Benjamin, MS, Research Associate.

ASAP is incredibly proud to work with superstar antiviral discovery scientists at Mount Sinai: Briana McGovern, Meg Gordon, Dr. Kris White, Dr. Suazo, and Jared Benjamin, among others!

Read about their important work here:
health.mountsinai.org/blog/stories...

Down the Elbe to Prague, great way to get to #RDKit:

Picture shows the side of a European Sleeper carriage in maroon livery with “Euro-Express” text on the side.

Sleeper Brussels to Prague, quite traditional for a game changer.

Avanti West coast train, yellow and turquoise livery arriving at Macclesfield (UK) station under the bridge with the word Macclesfield written across it under a blue sky with thin white clouds.

Heading overland to the #RDKit UGM, trying out the sleeper Brussels ->Prague from a London-> Brussels Eurostar. But first:

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪

From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):

Show Your Stripes Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

showyourstripes.info/c/europe/uni...

Priorities people:

Ouch…

AI advances are all about getting enough good data. For the first time this is data at the scale we need it for faster drug discovery. This could make a difference to so many diseases.

Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery 2025 - YouTube Recordings of the talks that took place at the Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery on April 7-8, 2025 in Montreal.

If you weren’t able to attend our Symposium on Open Drug Discovery in Montreal in April, you’re in luck - the recordings are now on YouTube and the slides are on Zenodo!

🎥 Watch the recordings: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

📄 Access the slides: zenodo.org/communities/...

Learning about European approaches to Pandemic Preparedness “We’re not safe till we’re all safe”:
@asapdiscovery.bsky.social
at: health.ec.europa.eu/events/hera-... #HealthUnion

Brilliant explainer from Pascale how to use patents as enablers in preparing for the next pandemic.

Today, @griffen-ed.bsky.social explains at the Open Drug Discovery Symposium how @asapdiscovery.bsky.social has developed a hybrid intellectual property model that counterintuitively uses patents to support open science innovation and ensure affordability & global access.
🔗 shorturl.at/gMY0t

Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery - Submission and registration are open! - Conscience Registration is now open for the second annual Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery! Join us at the Society for Arts and Technology in Montreal on April 7-8, 2025, for two days of insightful ta...

and I'm talking about it at the Conscience symposium next week in Montreal: conscience.ca/symposium2025

If this sparks your interest there's more of our background thinking published on open access in Wellcome Open Science: wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/9-374