April 14, 2026
Max Beining Teaches the EMBO Practical Course
As a guest lecturer at the EMBO Practical Course “Latin American Workshop on AI for Protein Design” in Puerto Varas, Chile, Max Beining, a SECAI doctoral student at the Institute for Drug Discovery at the University of Leipzig, shared his in-depth knowledge in the field of computer-aided protein design. The event provided the ideal setting for delivering practical tutorials on modern AI-based tools to young international researchers and for strengthening collaboration between European and Latin American researchers.
Max Beining has been a PhD candidate in Prof. Jens Meiler’s research group at the Institute for Drug Discovery at the University of Leipzig since January 2023, where he focuses on the development, expansion, and reorientation of computer-aided methods for protein design. With the release of AlphaFold in 2020 and the resulting surge in deep learning techniques for predicting and designing protein structures, the field has gained enormous attention and is considered one of the most promising areas of research. Applications range from the faster generation of new vaccines against potential viral infectious diseases to more targeted diagnostics using chemical sensors, and even new approaches to suppressing tumor growth.
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Max Beining at the EMBO Practical Course Latin American Workshop on AI for Protein Design
Thanks to improvements and the development of new methods, technological possibilities are constantly expanding. However, the field is evolving rapidly. Tools that are still relevant today may become obsolete in just a few years. For early-career researchers in particular, the sheer variety of techniques is often difficult to grasp. Building on his previous teaching experience at similar workshops in Ljubljana and Copenhagen, Max Beining was invited by César A. Ramírez-Sarmiento of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile to teach at the EMBO Practical Course “Latin American Workshop on AI for Protein Design (AI4PD)” in Puerto Varas (Chile), to introduce these methods to new doctoral students and industry partners. Together with an international team from LMU Munich, Harvard University, and the renowned University of Washington, he led hands-on tutorials and lectures on the application of current AI-based tools such as RFDiffusion3, BindCraft, and FrustraMPNN. Participants from 17 countries learned about state-of-the-art techniques in computer-aided protein modeling and design during the workshop, including AlphaFold, RoseTTAFold, and ProteinMPNN.
An integrated, multi-day hackathon allowed participants to immediately apply the methods they had learned to their own research questions and generate fantastic, creative ideas for novel protein designs. The format empowered the early-career researchers to establish these AI tools as standard instruments in their future research projects. The workshop also helped strengthen the protein design community in Latin America and further expand European ties with colleagues on the American continent.
