Things I care about

Leveraging science and machine learning to improve human health.

The effect of computational chemistry and biophysics on the democratization of drug design.

A robust understanding of the underlying physics of biomolecular events…

… and towards that goal, interpretable machine learning with firm physical basis.

Fun and interesting math/physics/biology/ML.

Women in STEM.

What I do

Currently, I’m a Machine Learning scientist for Prescient Design at Genentech inc.. I combine statistical mechanics and ML to develop methods for small molecule drug discovery.

Background

Before this, I worked with Pratyush Tiwary at the Institute of Physical Science and Technology in Maryland, where we attempt to conquer the world with AI augmented enhanced sampling. Specifically, we were hunting cryptic pockets by exploring the structural diversity of biomolecules.

Before I started fiddling with neural networks, I was, and will always be a theoretical molecular biophysicist. I learnt how to be this from my PhD advisor Aaron Dinner at the University of Chicago. Jonathan Weare at the Courant Institute in New York co-advised me and gave me some applied math chops as well.

Even before that, I went to college at IIT Bombay, where I might have learnt a few things, and also read the book “What is Life?” by Erwin Schrodinger and was more influenced by it than anyone should be by a book. I decided my life will be dedicated to understanding the physics of biology, so here we are.

Other Stuff

I also enjoy reading, trying and cooking interesting food, boardgames, long walks, and dogs. Especially dogs.

Contact me

You can email me at vani dot bodhi dot p at gmail dot com.