An unexpected, yet very welcome outcome of our work at the non-profit Ersilia Open Source Initiative has been the opportunity to network with people from many diverse backgrounds; computer scientists, infectious disease researchers, open source enthusiasts, pharma companies, educators, big tech, other non-profits… and attending conferences and seminars has proven to be the best way to strike new collaborations, learn about the needs related to AI modelling for infectious diseases and get inspired by amazing teams and projects. 

As part of my SSI Fellowship, I’ve been able to attend a wide range of events, including the H3D Symposium (focused on drug discovery for infectious diseases), the RDA Plenary seminar (Research Data Alliance, particularly the FAIR for ML track), The Global PyData 2022 (in a joint talk with three other SSI Fellows) and of course the SSI Collaborations Workshop. Earlier this year, I was invited as a main speaker at BrazMedChem2023, the largest medicinal chemistry conference in Latin America (LATAM), and I am really grateful for the SSI support that has once more allowed me to attend. 

So far, most of my organisation’s partnerships have been in Africa, so BrazMedChem presented a unique opportunity to learn more about the drug discovery landscape in LATAM. I gave a keynote lecture in the session “Overcoming the gap between academia and industry”, where I could share Ersilia’s unique approach as a non-profit to supporting the discovery of new drugs against infectious and neglected diseases from the countries where these diseases are more prevalent. I also had the opportunity to learn, during the other keynote lectures as well as a highly active poster session, about the major challenges in drug discovery for Leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, two Neglected Tropical Diseases highly endemic in LATAM regions. Combined, they affect more than 30 million people yearly, but the treatment options are extremely limited and present mild to severe toxicity in patients. We hope to leverage the fantastic work of many of the conference attendees to build AI models that could help identify new candidates for these hard-to-treat, neglected conditions.

Finally, I’d like to highlight the fantastic initiative of the BrazMedChem organisers to hold space in the scientific schedule for much needed discussions, such as the round table “Challenges for med chemist women in academia and Industry”, in which I participated as an invited speaker, together with Dr Lori Ferrins (Northeastern University) and Dr Julia Monteiro (Eurofarma).