2025 Dinner Short Courses* (In-Person Only)

Topics to be Covered:

• Comparison of Rule of Five and Beyond Rule of Five space
• Importance of intramolecular hydrogen bonds for solubility and permeability
• Determining chameleonicity and its importance for PROTACs
• Transporters and potential drug-drug interactions (DDIs)​

Who Should Attend:

Scientists in the field of proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) who would like to deepen their understanding of these molecules and the physicochemical attributes that may contribute to their success as oral drugs. ADME scientists and medicinal chemists wishing to understand PROTACs from a drug safety and metabolism perspective. Graduate students and academic scientists interested in learning more about this rapidly developing new drug modality.

Topics to be Covered:

• Pros and cons of fragment-based approaches 
• What makes a good fragment; properties of a good fragment library 
• Finding, validating, and characterizing low-affinity ligands 
• The importance of using orthogonal screening methods
• What to do with a fragment—growing, linking, and more​

Topics to be Covered:    

• Demystifying generative AI concepts and key terminologies  
• How predictive and generative AI works in de novo molecular design
• Overview of large language models (LLMs)  
• Prompt engineering, RAG, and fine-tuning for biopharma-specific LLMs
• Leveraging language models in drug discovery research with case studies​​

Who Should Attend:

Topics to be Covered:

(1) Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) & Cellular Target Engagement by Elmar Nurmemmedov, CellarisBio

• Why measuring cellular target engagement early in drug discovery is important for challenging drug targets
• Pros and cons of fluorescence-based Micro-Tag cellular target engagement methods and comparison to other cell target engagement methods
• Case studies and novel applications of fluorescence-based Micro-Tag cellular target engagement method

(2) Affinity Selection Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) by Hans Biemann, Sanofi and Can Ozbal, Momentum Bio

• Overview of ASMS as a biophysical assay technique
• ASMS for highthroughput screening
• ASMS for compound binding studies
  
• Sanofi case studies

(3) SPR Microscopy for Membrane Proteins by Jonathan Brooks, Pfizer​​

• ​Introduction to SPRm and ligand tracer platforms
• Examples of SPRm applied to cell binding kinetics
• Cell attachment strategies for SPRm
• Working with live and fixed cells
• Binding of large v. small molecules

Topics to be Covered:

• Measuring ADME properties in vitro and in vivo and specific challenges
• Metabolism of PROTACs and influence of linker length on stability
• Case study of optimizing a PROTAC
• Safety issues unique to PROTACs
• Circadian rhythm considerations​

Who Should Attend:

Topics to be Covered:

• Chemical biology assays and probes for target engagement and mechanistic understanding
• Chemoproteomic methods and reagents for covalent ligand drug discovery
• Comparison of various chemical biology approaches (mass spectrometry, affinity-bead methods, proximity labeling proteomics, and more) 
• Use of quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomics and global proteomics
• Discovery of chemical probes 
• Constructing annotated chemogenomic compound sets for phenotypic screening
  
• Cysteine profiling and covalent inhibitors for target discovery and occupancy
• Design and screening of chemogenomics libraries for target identification
• Case studies highlighting use of proteomics for target engagement and deconvolution​​​​

Topics to be Covered: 

• AI applications in target discovery and predictive diagnostics 
• Machine learning strategies for patient stratification and personalized medicine 
• Frameworks for scaling AI initiatives across pharmaceutical organizations
• Critical considerations for implementing and managing AI projects 
• Ethical implications and emerging trends in AI-driven drug development

Who Should Attend:

Topics to be Covered:

• Medicinal chemistry and structure-based drug design principles
• Interpretation of atomic-level protein X-ray and modeled structures of binding mode
• Understanding the relative amounts of potency gain from different types of interactions
• Case studies to illustrate all the design strategies​

Topics to be Covered:

• Introduction to DNA-encoded libraries
• Pros and cons of using DNA-encoded chemical libraries
• Structure of the DNA coding region and how it has evolved over time
• Affinity-based selection strategy and how it guides hit-picking
• Data analysis and the decision-making logic in hit confirmation
• Introduction to and benefits of one-bead, one-compound (OBOC) DNA-encoded libraries​