Wojciech (Wojtek) Kopec
@wojciechkopec3
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Lecturer @chemistry_qmul | Guest Scientist @compbiophys | Computational Electrophysiology simulations | Living with insomnia | 🇵🇱🇩🇰🇺🇸🇩🇪🇬🇧
London, UK
Joined August 2018
Teaser of our most recent manuscript, preprint in a few days! :) #potassiumispurple #kchannels #directknockon
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aaand the new movie, this time for the NaK2K channel
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Got offered a lecturer position, now this is something to think about over Christmas.
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3 years of work finally resulted in a paper! This time not potassium channels 😉 transport of small hydrophobic molecules through membranes via beta-barrel protein .
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German B2 exam passed 🎉🎉 that was a lot of work
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After months of applying and many rejections, on my way to the interview for a junior professor position 🫣😇 98% nervous 2% excited or other way around.
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academia: thanks for your application. You will hear from us within a year (no joke, that was the actual email). industry: thanks for your application. can we talk next week?.
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We got it!!!! 🥳🤩🤩🤩 Soon hiring my 1st PhD student!! Thanks so much to all my mentors and collaborators along the way, especially the one and only Bert de Groot @CompBioPhys.
Done! Waiting for the reviewers decision! All the groups did a wonderful job. Also the #ionman hashtag was born! #ionchannels #dynion 🎉🥳🤥🙏🙏😇🇩🇪.
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Thrilled to announce that our Human Frontier Science Program @HFSP joint proposal led by Andreas Hartel @AndreasHartel1 with Tiago Costa @tiagomlcosta and yours truly got funded! We will study mechanosensitive channels under ultrasounds with cutting edge el phys and MD sims!.
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Happy to get the 2nd prize from the German Society for Biophysics in the scientific photo competition. Two hydrophobic polycations are chilling on the membrane surface. Made exclusively in VMD, thanks all the devs for this great tool
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Made it to the local newspaper, no impact factor though 🫣
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it's not that "i don't wanna stay in academia" rather "academia doesn't want me to stay".
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My #BPS2021 poster on current regulation in potassium channels studied with in silico electrophysiology simulations! 3 different mechanisms we have identified recently - i) filter widening ii) hydrophobic gating below the SF iii) direct knock-on formation efficiency.
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The most revealing 'scientific' story of 2019 for me:. 1. A paper is published in @eLife, that claims an effect based on extremely low statistics [one measurement per condition, 4 conditions = 4 measurements in total]. 2. Thanks to journal's visible reviewers comments. 1/n.
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After 7.5 years it’s my last day at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen @mpi_nat @CompBioPhys thanks for the ride Max Planck Society and see you around @maxplanckpress
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Just potassium ions binding to the sodium-potassium pump
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Trying to build a tutorial on simulating and analysing an ion channel with GROMACS. wish me luck @GMX_TWEET.
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🚨new preprint! We (with my partner in crime .@VytasGapsys) have discovered an unexpected artifact/effect in MD simulations at low salt concentration (or no salt at all).
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I am reviewing a solid computational study on protein membrane interactions. Suddenly the second reviewer asks the authors if they can provide experimental evidence for their hypothesis. It is like trying to buy a car at a bakery. Please don't do it.
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I have a MD joke but it needs more time to finish.
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Just got funding for an international candidate to join me as the first PhD student in my lab at @QMUL 🥳🥳 celebrating every small success.
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Last night my brain decided 3:45 am is a good time to think what might happen if I don't get any position I applied for. Managed to get some more sleep around 6 😴.
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Thanks to the HFSP grant I have, there are additional funds available to hire a PhD student/postdoc/senior scientist affected by the war in Ukraine. MD simulations of membrane proteins, ultrasounds, computational electrophysiology. Please DM and RT.
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- be a young PI.- apply for a grant.- reviewers dont like the fact that you dont have experience in being a PI .- grant rejected.- dont get the experience in being a PI.Rinse and repeat 🫡.
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@prof_kozak Plus putting unnecessary pressure on the applicants with “letters have to arrive before xxx”, especially on younger folks. It’s like I did a msc with this prof. but now he’s travelling through australia but is supposed to write a letter within 3 weeks. Good luck with that.
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Isolation dance in the kitchen 🎵😇 stay positive and swing out! 🥳🥳🥳
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Dear research network - I just got contacted by a scientist from Ukraine, biology PhD, working on mucoadhesive dosage forms of biologically active substances, fleeing her country and looking for a position in the west. Anyone?.
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And here is the preprint: . We used charge scaling / electronic continuum correction to study ion permeation in potassium channels. Big thanks and congratulations to all authors: @4SPQutXMsAXsPzJ who spearheaded the work, @_Reinier and Bert @CompBioPhys.
Teaser of our most recent manuscript, preprint in a few days! :) #potassiumispurple #kchannels #directknockon
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This feeling when computational and experimental data fit so well (and they havent seen each other before) 🤯.
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Theres been some non scientific project going on 😊😉🥳
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Side project's paper accepted! Thanks to all 4 Reviewers that helped a lot - we've learned so much in the process. Coming soon in @ACS_Langmuir @VytasGapsys @JagiellonskiUni
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A potassium channel (NaK2K) at 1.20 A resolution!! Had a blast simulating these structures. Great collaboration with Leighton Coates team from the Oak Ridge National Lab.
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Finally some good news, after a year of struggles my wife will join the London nursing workforce 🥳.
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Off for vacation! Van is full and we’re gonna camp, hike and discover some hidden gems, in both Germany and Poland 🇩🇪🇵🇱.
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Preparing my first teaching module from scratch (molecular modelling for drug discovery), probably more stressed than the students 🥵. Thanks to everyone for putting amazing resources out there and again big shout to @eriklindahl for amazing youtube videos on molecular biophysics.
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I had a wonderful visit at @scilifelab great scientific discussions with the members of @DelemotteLab and @eriklindahl labs! Thanks so much for the invitation 🙏🥳@WillPPK
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I applied exactly one year ago and no results yet (that I’m aware of). As my mom used to say - ‘the best time to look for a job is when you have a job’ 🙃.
just applied for the first time for a tenure track position 🤫🧐.
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3 months in the UK, trying to hire PhD students & postdocs
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We've reviewed computational and experimental studies about ion permeation mechanisms in K+ channels. Article in revision, here's the preprint - feedback welcome!
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When you have to work on a new machine where nothing works properly, gnuplot is there to rescue
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A non-academic friend showed me some shady papers and saying “but they were peer reviewed!! 😭” so i made a meme for her
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I got invited for an interview after I've lost all hope 🙃.
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Very proud of my first final project (Bsc) students in the UK, Ivan and Sindi. We started in September and now they’re simulating those CFTR and Shaker channels like pros #proudpi @QMUL @QMULSPCS thank you @DERI_QMUL for all the flops 😋😋
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For my recent move between countries (🇩🇪->🇬🇧) I had to put aside ~20k £ (visas, moving company, few months rent paid in advance bc. no credit score). Ill be getting 90% of it back (or paid in advance) but it was super stressful and not easy, especially for an academic.
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also some unexpected good news for yours truly ;)
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interested in absolute free energies of ligand binding from MD? Don't miss this excellent new contribution outlining the state of the field: ..@VytasGapsys @davidlmobley @matteo_aldeghi @CompBioPhys.
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just applied for the first time for a tenure track position 🤫🧐.
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The new polish minister of education (and also a professor at the "catholic university" said 3 months ago "LGBT people are not equal to normal people" and I'm still being asked why I don't wanna move back to Poland.
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Arrived in the UK 🇬🇧🥳 first day at work tomorrow 😬
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applying for academic positions in Germany, 2022 [in German]: "this questionnaire is to be sent to the Dean's Office via CD/floppy disk".
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🥳🎉.
Molecular mechanism of a potassium channel gating through activation gate-selectivity filter coupling. @RothbergLab @CompBioPhys @wojciechkopec3 @mpi_bpc.
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Not working this weekend, just studying few hours a day for the next language exam; sometimes the idea of trying to get a PI position in a foreign country just feels like too much.
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Join us🥳💅.
➡️We have openings for PhD and Postdoc positions @CompBioPhys @mpi_bpc in @goettingen - Your application is most welcome! Please visit our website for more details on the announcments:
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academic job announcements that ask you to prepare all your docs as pdfs and then in the actual application portal make you copy paste all this information again in some small boxes are another layer of evil.
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First graduation. Forgot my more formal hoodie 🤣 the students, Ivan and Sindi, did fantastic job in their final year projects
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In 2023 I.- got married ❤️.- moved countries 🇬🇧 .- started an independent research career 😵💫.- got admitted to the hospital twice 🤕.- enjoyed climbing 🧗♂️ .- suffered and recovered from a hamstring injury 🤕.- learned a bit a new dance (balboa)🕺🏿.- worked on my issues in therapy.
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Having a partner working over Christmas in a hospital meant that I was solely responsible for cooking this time. Tried several traditional polish recipes, with a vegan twist. Worked quite nicely!! 🎄🎅🤶.
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GROMACS reminds you: "I came up with the new convergence method, it's called a deadline driven convergence. My simulation is converged when it hits the deadline." (Tanadet Pipatpolkai). nice achievement @WillPPK @GMX_TWEET.
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just had a first session with my therapist since January 2019. feel so much better already. Remember, if you keep feeling bad, they are there to help you! My mom calls them 'soul doctors' #mentalhealth @AcademicChatter.
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Grant proposal submitted. Few months of writing with twitterless Andreas Hartel and Tiago Costa - I never met them in real life! Many thanks to Gerhard Thiel from @TUDarmstadt who put us together 🙏🙏.
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Congratulations to my PI Bert de Groot @CompBioPhys (and the whole team) for this new paper on glycerol-selective aquaglyceroporins. Bert did all MD simulations on his own - amazing when PIs still manage to do research on their own!.
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I had (still having) a great time in Oxford!! Lots of discussions, great science Thanks @ProfSyK @philbiggin ♥️.
Really insightful seminar from @wojciechkopec3 on potassium ion permeation through K+ channels and also artefacts in molecular dynamics due to periodic boundaries. A pleasure to host Wojciech on behalf of SBCB: a UK membrane simulations powerhouse @philbiggin @BiochemOxford
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starting a sentence with "our data clearly show. " and then being stuck for an hour is probably not a good sign.
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chloride ions (yellow) finding their way through the CFTR channel. Fun simulations with @isoteak
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“Only cash” (nur Bargeld!) on an international Deutsche Bahn train was the first thing I heard when trying to get a bottle of water, coming from the UK. Hard to get more stereotypical @germany_iam.
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@patrickwintour @ecfr @jonhenley "In all European countries save Poland" vs. "Survey across 10 European countries and UK" seriously?.
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@careerconversa1 I was told the same when I became a PhD student and my english was not very good; i was told the same at my first posters that werent looking super fancy etc. having these skills is great but it takes time to develop and often they are secondary to the main thing. .
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New PhD and postdoc positions available in our group!!. Please RT and feel free to DM me if you have any questions. #MDsimulations #Ionchannels #FreeEnergy #PotassiumChannels
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Partner (nurse) got the first shot of the corona vaccine 💉🙏💪.
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Our new work with @RothbergLab is out! We looked at the selectivity filter gating and ion permeation in the MthK potassium channel and its KcsA-inspired V55E mutant.
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A single simulation is enough.
give me a horror story from your specialty in five words or less.
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I am a chemists who is using computational biophysical approaches to study ion channels and their inner workings. Besides science, I like jazz music and especially dancing Lindy Hop #ThisIsWhatAScientistLooksLike .#ILookLikeAScientist
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My PhD advisor Himanshu is looking for a postdoc in MD simulations of membranes, ion pumps and voltage sensing! Great place, great people, great science
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Please do not organize conferences like this:."Please bring your PowerPoint Presentation on a USB flash drive. Please note that presentation from your own laptop will NOT be possible.". - I don't use Powerpoint.- I don't have a windows machine.- I don't have a USB flash drive.
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even after 8 years after finishing my PhD I can randomly ask my PhD supervisor for academic and life advice. Truly a blessing.
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Honest MD simulation database - a collection of systems simulated with MD where nothing happens for x ns.
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@SusannaLHarris Cholesterol (molecule) is the 2nd most abundant molecule in our bodies (after water).
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How K+ ions cross K+ channels? We still don't fully understand, but we were lucky enough to work with an amazing team of scientists led by Adam Lange and Han Sun, who showed, using ssNMR, that the ion conduction in K+ channels is water-free
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I often work on weekends, especially since my partner does it too (she works in a hospital) but then i’d randomly go climbing at 2pm on Tuesday.
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