I went to bed last night around 11:30 when Red Sox took the lead, but I was unable to sleep. Reminded of the hard loss the night before, I had to watch till the end. Of course, I was up until 12:40 and I will pay for it today! It is the Nobel Prize season and this morning we found out that the prize for Chemistry went to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel. As they say, it is about time that the importance of computer simulations in understanding large biological molecules is recognized. Needless to say that as someone who did my graduate work and postdoctoral work in the mid-80’s these very familiar names. My thesis mentor Prof David Beveridge knew them all, so we have had the fortune to meet them and hear them talk in several occasions. As early users of a software called CHARMM that was developed in Karplus lab, we have met him and his group a few times.

We have tried to keep the community informed of the accomplishments of LTS staff through the annual report. This year we wanted to try something different. We have used infographics to convey some key points. You can view the entire report here. But, I have attached a few highlights below. Whereas the annual report celebrates some of the key achievements, it sometimes fails to capture all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. So we always have to make some judgement call on what to present.

This semester is off to a rocky start and it is an unsettling feeling. We have identified some network issues (relating to Macs and broadcasts) that affected the classroom connectivity and wireless issues in certain dorms. For those affected by these issues, many questions remain and they want the problems resolved quickly. We have been trying very hard and have many of the issues under control. It is frustrating all around, but we will keep at it until the issues are resolved. Of course, then something else will pop up.

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