Aled Edwards S.G.

We still can’t predict much of anything in biology Biology is hard. Yes, even for AI.

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.

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

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!

Tributes pour in for hockey legend, former politician and author Ken Dryden | CBC News Tributes are pouring in from across Canada and beyond after former Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden — a legend of Canadian hockey — died at the age of 78.

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CACHE 7 is launched with support from the @gatesfoundation.bsky.social and unpublished data from Damian Young at @bcmhouston.bsky.social, Tim Willson @thesgc.bsky.social and Neelagandan Kamaria InSTEM.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

Protein–ligand data at scale to support machine learning Nature Reviews Chemistry - Target 2035 aims to develop a potent and selective pharmacological modulator for every human protein by 2035 with the results made publicly available. This Roadmap...

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! 🇨🇦

Opinion | The Waste Musk Created

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

White House Health Report Included Fake Citations

Unbelievable

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/w...

The United States has levied sanctions on Harvard but not on Russia. A curious set of values.

Waiting for Trump to emerge

First DREAM Target 2035 Drug Discovery Challenge 'First DREAM Target 2035 Drug Discovery Challenge' (Synapse ID: syn65660836) is a project on Synapse. Synapse is a platform for supporting scientific collaborations centered around shared biomedic...

@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

Richard Gold Full Professor Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy James McGill Professor Associate member, Dept of Human Genetics Chancellor Day Hall 3644 Peel Street Room 34 Montreal, Quebec Canada H3...

Congratulations @tridentpct.bsky.social open science lead Dr. Richard Gold, Faculty of Law, McGill University for being named a Distinguished James McGill Professor. Learn more about Richard here. www.mcgill.ca/law/profs/go...

Another hidden cost is the time waiting to execute Material Transfer Agreements (to safeguard the IP that loses money). Optimistically (very), an MTA takes on average a month to execute. Our university does 6,000 per year. That’s 500 person/years of delay….to safeguard IP…that loses money.

George Santos, U.S. congressman for less than a year, sentenced to more than 7 years in prison | CBC News Disgraced former U.S. Congress member George Santos, who lied about his life story and defrauded donors, was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison, sobbing as he heard his punishment.

Santos sentenced to 7 years. His big mistake was not to storm the Capitol.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/u...

To me, among the most distressing things in Canadian politics is the tacit acceptance of rude and uncouth words in signs and flags directed at (almost always left-leaning) politicians. I have no idea how this became acceptable.

Count the Dead by the Millions From HIV and tuberculosis infections to millions of dead children, the deadly impact of Rubio, Musk and Trump’s agenda has been quantified.

A new study models the impact of the implosion of U.S.-funded disease treatment and prevention in the developing world — and suggests that Elon Musk and Marco Rubio will go down as among history’s greatest monsters if funding and effective administration are not restored.

Mandating geothermal in all new homes and developments is great climate-friendly policy. It’s cheaper to heat your home and no emissions (depending on your electricity source). As Canada is set to embark on a massive housing program, let’s do it!

Heat seeking

20 years ago, we retrofitted our house in downtown Toronto to be heated by closed-loop geothermal, after E had seen it being used in a home in a Swiss mountain village (for 10 years prior to that!). Works great.

www.cbc.ca/newsinteract...

We voted today. 🇨🇦