2026 Breakout Discussions
Breakout Discussions are informal, moderated discussions, allowing participants to exchange ideas and experiences and develop future collaborations around a focused topic. Each breakout will be led by a facilitator/s who keeps the discussion on track and the group engaged.
All Breakouts will be offered IN-PERSON ONLY. Note that you can track-hop to a breakout discussion taking place on a concurrent conference track.
TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER, 2026 | 18:15 – 19:15
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
Direct-to-Biology (D2B) Applications for Degrader and Small Molecule Lead Generation
Sam M. Rowe, PhD, Principal Scientist, Chemical Biology, GSK
Ryan A. Hollibaugh, PhD, Principal Scientist, Jnana Therapeutics
- For what is D2B best suited in small molecule, covalent, and degrader programs?
- When in development (ie. HitGen, Lead ID, Lead OP) would you switch from D2B to traditional single target synthesis and how would you decide upon design strategy?
- Compatible chemistry for D2B: what are the key factors? do you have results you are excited about?
- How do you monitor the chemistry to ensure the biology is reading what you think it is? What defines a successful reaction?
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
DEL (DNA-Encoded Library) Developments
Sanne Glad, PhD, Scientific Director, Lead Discovery, Amgen
- Best practices for confirming hits from DEL screens
- Using DEL for difficult targets such as GPCRs
- Beyond hit-to-lead: DEL for degrader discovery and other applications
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
AI for Drug Design and Lead Optimization
Anthony Bradley, D.Phil, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool
Kirill Pevzner, CTO & Co-Founder, Protai
Victor Sebastian Perez, PhD, Head of Computational Drug Design, EMEA, SandboxAQ
- Using generative chemistry to enhance physicochemical properties and ligand interactions
- Exploring diverse molecular structures and chemical space using LLMs and other tools
- Effective use of virtual screening and structure-activity predictions tools
- Using physics and computational chemistry to find novel targets and leads
- Where virtual screening and structure-based methods are having the most impact
- How much can you trust AI models and its predictions?
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
AI/ML- True Impact in Drug Discovery Today
Ruben Abagyan, PhD, Professor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California, San Diego
Ashwini Ghogare, PhD, MBA, GenAI Leader, Start-Ups, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Amazon Web Services
Aleksandra Karolak, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Machine Learning, Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
Arvind Rao, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan
- Practical ways AI/ML is improving decision-making in drug discovery today
- Combining generative and predictive models with physics-based methods
- Setting realistic expectations for model generalizability, bias, and data quality
- Quantity versus quality data in AI
- Does your model cover an extensive and diverse chemical space?
WEDNESDAY, 11 NOVEMBER, 2026 | 17:10 – 17:55
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
Novel Degrader Modalities, Ligases for Pursuing Challenging Drug Targets
Dean Clift, PhD, Head, Exploratory Biology, TRIMTECH Therapeutics
Ivan Cornella Taracido, PhD, Founder, New Stealth Co.
- What makes a good degrader target versus a good inhibitor target
- Expanding degradation beyond oncology into challenging targets for immunology, neuroscience, rare diseases and more.
- Utilizing new assays and platforms for structural and mechanistic characterization of degrader modalities
- Beyond CRBN and VHL: which ligases are most promising?
- Strategies for discovering and validating new ligase recruiters
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
Designing and Optimizing Molecular Glues and Proximity-based Drugs
Gopal Sapkota, PhD, Programme Leader, MRC Protein Phosphorylation & Ubiquitylation Unit, Sir James Black Centre, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee
Asad Taherbhoy, PhD, Senior Director, Discovery, Foghorn Therapeutics
- Moving from serendipitous findings to systematic discovery platforms
- Screening approaches for identifying novel glues
- Structure-based and AI-enabled glue discovery
- Which drug classes and therapeutic areas beyond oncology are most promising for induced proximity therapeutics?
- Leveraging covalent chemistry, induced proximity to develop new degrader modalities
- Optimizing potency, selectivity, tissue specificity and PK properties
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
Peptide Design Innovations
Danila Branca, PhD, Director, Head of Peptide Therapeutics, IRBM
Charles Johannes, PhD, Founder & Principal, EPOC Scientific; President & Co-Founder, Peptide Drug Hunting Consortium (PDHC)
- Scaffolds for peptide design
- Using synthetic peptides
- Creating permeable peptides
- Working with CROs
IN-PERSON ONLY BREAKOUT:
Biophysical Approaches for Small Molecule Lead Generation
Juan Felix Espinosa, PhD, Associate VP Biophysics, Early Molecule Discovery, Lilly
Stefan Geschwindner, PhD, Director, Biophysics, AstraZeneca R&D Gothenburg
- Current and emerging biophysical approaches for hard-to-drug PPI targets
- NMR advances
- Integrating hits from various screening approaches
- Using small molecule RNA binders to tackle difficult drug targets