Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social

BSc in Genetics at @UABBarcelona

MSc in Bioinformatics at @UPFBarcelona

PhD in Structural Bioinformatics at @dundeeuni

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at @ucl

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

🧵 1/6 🚀 Happy to share our latest preprint:

“Interrogating contrastive learning embeddings for structure-based virtual screening: a case study on DrugCLIP”

My first paper of the postdoc era, so definitely a special one!

📜 https://t.co/Sx2rUMYMm0

[Gonzalo Parra @GonzaParra_]

We are very happy to share our new PyTorch Frustratometer. First software update since the R package was published in 2021!

Congrats @EliDraizen, @cabb99pe and Hana Jaafari for the hard work!
https://t.co/xEKB6l9CFW

Small thread! 🧵!

[ISCB News @iscb]

The scientific programme for 3D-BioInfo 2026 is live! 🧬And today is the last chance to take advantage of the discounted registration rate! 

🔗Register: https://t.co/Ob7mPN49HE

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

Are you working on the field of #Structural #Bioinformatics and have not registered yet? What are you waiting for?

Join me and the community in attending this excellent meeting in beatiful and history-rich #Rome!

I am so excited for this and cannot wait to see you all there!

[ISCB News @iscb]

🎉 Good news! The early registration deadline for the 3D  BioInfo annual meeting has been extended to Sunday, October 4! 

Register at https://t.co/Ob7mPN49HE

📌ELIXIR membership is NOT required.

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

6/6 🔑 Overall, our work helps clarify what contrastive pocket-ligand models learn, where they work well & where they can improve – providing a framework that can also be applied to #BindCLIP, #DrugHash, #ConGLUDe & future methods.

Thanks to everyone involved in the project! 🙌

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

🧵 1/6 🚀 Happy to share our latest preprint:

“Interrogating contrastive learning embeddings for structure-based virtual screening: a case study on DrugCLIP”

My first paper of the postdoc era, so definitely a special one!

📜 https://t.co/Sx2rUMYMm0

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

5/6 🔹 For novel targets, DrugCLIP recovers the correct ligand within the top 1% of ~50,000 compounds in 55-75% of cases.

But performance drops in more realistic scenarios, driven by sidechain orientation and, for predicted pockets, differences in pocket residue selection.

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

@gjbarton @dundeeuni @ELIXIREurope Events like ECCB are a great reminder of how valuable it is to bring the computational biology community together to exchange ideas, share new research, and build collaborations!

I cannot wait for #ISMB + #ECCB in #Copenhagen next year. I hope to see many of you there! 🇩🇰

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

Earlier this month, I attended the 25th European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) @ECCBinfo in beautiful #Geneva, #Switzerland!

[Dr Javier Sánchez Utgés @javierutges.bsky.social @JavierUtges]

@gjbarton @dundeeuni A huge thank you to the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics for organising such an enjoyable and stimulating conference, and to @ELIXIREurope for its generous support. Thanks also to all the volunteers, speakers, session chairs, and everyone else involved behind the scenes!

[Protein Data Bank @PDBeurope]

Our bioRxiv paper introduces ECIFP: a scalable interaction fingerprint that maps the landscape of ligand binding modes.

✅ Identified binding modes for 9k+ ligands
✅ Analysis of 48k+ binding sites from 21k+ proteins
✅ Open-source & interpretable

more:
https://t.co/abkDFOwMeD

[Jude Wells @_judewells]

I'm 6 months into this fellowship, and it's been brilliant. If you've got ideas at the intersection of AI and science and want to take a shot at making them real then I can't think of a better opportunity. 8 DAYS LEFT TO APPLY TO JOIN COHORT 2. @encode_pillarvc @ARIA_research