This week we want to welcome two new students to Kruvelab: Alice Kollmitz and Lucas Ferrando Plo.
Originally from Spain, Lucas recently finished his MSc degree in Germany. His objective was to elucidate the origin of anthraquinone residues in the leaves of English walnut tree (Juglans regia). In our group, he is the first of three PhD students working on the project to develop an AI model to spot toxic or potentially toxic compounds in environmental samples. More specifically, Lucas will use the candidate structures from MS2 spectra to build a self-learning model, able to iteratively remove the candidate structures that are unlikely to be in the sample. His main focus is to try to combine predictions like retention time, CCS values, and adduct formation into one model. We hope he can endure the colder climate here in Sweden and that he will have an amazing and successful time with us.
Alice, a MSc student in Sustainable Chemistry, has joined our group for an internship. Her focus will be deciphering the predictions of bioactivity-predicting deep neural networks developed by Ida. By shedding light on these “black boxes,” Alice aims to understand why certain chemicals are deemed active in bioassays. We’re excited about the insights she’ll uncover and hope her internship sparks a return for her MSc thesis.
We are really happy to have you both in our group and cannot wait to see where your research leads you.