Motivated Trainees and Tutors Shine at FEBS Advanced Practical Course

On April 19-24, 2026, 36 international participants gathered in Blankenberge, Belgium, for the FEBS Advanced Practical Course: Generative AI for Protein Engineering. The course, supported by Rosetta Commons, offered an introduction to protein design, combining theoretical lectures, tool-specific tutorials, and a hands-on project, with a focus on Rosetta Commons tools. Participants were able to work in groups as well as on individual projects.

Anastassia Vorobieva, the main organizer of the course, mentored one of the subgroups focused on protein-ligand interaction design. “I was really impressed by the motivation and fearlessness of my group,” she said. “Ligand binding is a particularly difficult problem, yet they were very determined to work on it and ended up designing NTF2 binders to cortisol using COMBS and LigandMPNN.”

This motivation to tackle challenging problems was a recurring theme throughout the course as participants worked collaboratively, sometimes until 1 a.m. “There was a real collaborative spirit,” Anastassia said. “Everyone was helping each other, sharing materials and ideas.” The tutors in particular were dedicated to creating a productive experience for trainees and had the opportunity to network, present their work, and return to their own labs with a new confidence in their research abilities.

Participants’ hard work resulted in everyone successfully running protein design pipelines on the HPC cluster by the end of the course, even though most had no prior experience beyond using AlphaFold on Colab. And at the end of the day, participants were able to take in beach views that were across from the venue, while talking science and catching up with friends and making new ones.

With such success, organizers are exploring options for a similar course in two years and hope it leads to a continued partnership between FEBS and Rosetta Commons. FEBS is a special poster prize sponsor at European RosettaCon 2026, which takes place in Lisbon, Portugal in October.