Attended the Free Energy Calculations in Drug Design meeting held at Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston, MA. Their new site on the Boston harbor is quite impressive! Special thanks to David Mobley, John Chodera, Michael Shirts, and the other organizers that saw fit to send me an invite to the meeting.
The free energy meeting focused on the current state of such calculations, particularly in their application in the field of ligand/drug development and design. We dabble in such calculations in the lab, specifically in new approaches to estimating these values and using them to improve aspects of general molecular simulations. At this meeting, I gave a poster presentation on some work optimizing alcohol force fields that was a collaborative project with David Mobley and one of his undergraduate students, Karisa Wymer. A more detailed research synopsis of the work can be found in the Research section of this website.
It was great seeing several people I've chatted/worked with in the past: Justin, David, Gabe, Jean-Francois, John, Vijay, etc. While it is always nice to see people I know, these meetings are particularly great for seeing and meeting people that I haven't crossed paths with in the past, like Alan Mark, Christophe Chipot, Bernie Brooks, and others. Also, thanks to David Mobley for the shout-out on our work during his presentation!