This is the site of the (probabilistic) Machine Learning bookclub at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. We aim to bring people interested in the underlying concepts/theory of ML applied to biological research and engineering.
We run sessions on Thursdays in N3-47 in the Morgan building (Wellcome Sanger Institute), and on Zoom! 🎯 The current time is 9:00AM (UK time) but could be adjusted in the future based on room/attendee availability. ⏰
Sergio is a PhD student supervised by Debbie Marks (Harvard Medical School) and Ben Lehner (Wellcome Sanger Institute). He is working on AI for enzyme design.
Javier is a PhD student supervised by Josie Bryant (Wellcome Sanger Institute) and Craig MacLean (INEOS Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research). He is working on modelling antimicrobial resistance.
| Week | Day (Thursday) | Activity | In charge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 3rd July | Interactive workshop | Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 2 | 10th July | Interactive workshop | Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 3 | 17th July | NN overview | Kevin |
| Week 4 | 24th July | Interactive workshop | Javier |
| Summer! 🏄🏻♂️ 🌴 | Summer! 🏄🏻♂️ 🌴 | Summer! 🏄🏻♂️ 🌴 | Summer! 🏄🏻♂️ 🌴 |
| Week 5 | 18th September | Journal Club | Javier |
| Week 6 | 25th September | Study Session | Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 7 | DELAYED | DELAYED | N/A |
| Week 8 | 7th October | Interactive workshop | Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 9 | 16th October | Study Session | Javier/Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 10 | 30th October | Study Session | Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 11 | DELAYED | DELAYED | N/A |
| Week 12 | 13th November | Interactive workshop | Javier |
| Week 13 | 20th November | Workshop (1/4) | Jonas 🧠 |
| Week 14 | 27th November | Workshop (2/4) | Jonas 🧠 |
| Christmas break! ☃️ 🎄 | Christmas break! ☃️ 🎄 | Christmas break! ☃️ 🎄 | Christmas break! ☃️ 🎄 |
| Week 15 | 8th January | Workshop (3/4) | Jonas 🧠 |
| Week 16 | 15th January | Workshop (4/4) | Jonas 🧠 |
| Week 17 | 22nd January | Journal Club | Sergio 🌞 |
| Week 18 | DELAYED | DELAYED | N/A |
| Week 19 | 5th February | Journal Club | Javier 🌞 |
Sessions are chaired by one or two people. There are three types of sessions as of July 2025:
In these pages you will find a brief summary of what was covered in each session, with slides and paper links!
Workshop: Attention! The sequences that changed the world (Part I)
Workshop: Attention! The sequences that changed the world (Part II)
Workshop: An overview of Neural Networks - Kevin Ly
Workshop: Gaussian Processes — a brief introduction
Journal Club: AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discovery