Conference Day Two, Thursday September 4, 2025

8.00 Check-In & Light Breakfast

8:55 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

9:00 am Revolutionizing Molecular Glue Hits: Widening Screening Strategies Across Various Pair Interactions

  • Abhishek Dogra Director, Medicinal Chemistry and Induced Proximity, A-Alpha Bio Inc.

Synopsis

  • Overcoming long-standing barriers to screening for molecular glues in drug discovery
  • Leveraging A-Alpha Bio’s platform to influence the types of screening approaches used for different kinds of pairs and strengths of interaction
  • Promoting 3D screening of vast effector-target-glue combinations to achieve millions of interactions

Introducing Novel Technologies to Extract Quality Candidates for Smarter Hit Finding

9:30 am Scaling Up the ROSALIND Platform for Oligonucleotide Hot Spot Detection

  • Chloe Jones Principal Scientist, Encoded Technologies, GlaxoSmithKline

Synopsis

  • Advancing oligonucleotide therapeutics to experimentally identify hot spots in relevant primary or immortalized cell lines
  • Enabling discovery tissue selectivity by profiling across various cell types
  • Gaining insights into sensitive, specific, and highly scalable technology to generate AI/ML training data

10.00 Morning Refreshments & Networking

10:45 am Incorporating Novelty and Diversity in Oncology Drug Discovery: From Cancer Genome Screening to Ligand Identification

  • William Mallender Senior Vice President - Biochemistry, Tango Therapeutics Sub, Inc - dba Tango Therapeutics

Synopsis

• Focusing on unique, ‘yet to be drugged’ cancer targets

• Enabling novel targets for screening campaigns to interrogate ligandability

• Evaluating hits identified from orthogonal screening methods

11:15 am Roundtable Discussion: Tackling Industry-Wide Challenges with Hard-to-Drug Targets for Future Hit ID Strategies

  • Debra Brennan Senior Director - Protein Sciences & Structural Biology, Nimbus Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Understanding how new target classes would require rethinking both screening methods and library composition
  • Formulating a strategy to inform how disease context influences hit finding opportunities
  • Questioning how to prioritize different target classes based on stability and mechanism of action

12.15 Lunch & Networking

Harnessing Computational Tools to Enable Large-Scale Screening for Maximized Hit Capabilities

1:15 pm Leveraging ML & Chemometrics for Small Molecule Hit ID & Triaging

  • Xinhao Li Senior Scientist, Johnson & Johnson

Synopsis

  • Facilitating HTS hit prioritization and triaging by integrating chemical clustering, predictive ML models, promiscuity profiling, and library enumeration
  • Developing a user-centric, data-driven triaging platform that empowers chemists to prioritize chemical series in the hit ID stage with traceable decision-making
  • Employing interactive visualization and reporting tools featuring cluster-level promiscuity analysis and a traffic light alert system to flag off-targets and liabilities

1:45 pm Proteases & Beyond: Enhancing Allosteric Site Screening Using 3D/AI-CPU/ GPU Framework

  • Ruben Abagyan Professor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, UC San Diego

Synopsis

  • Overcoming challenges with discovering selective inhibitors for transient allosteric and PPI pockets
  • Utilizing advanced data integration and large-scale screening to identify potential candidates
  • Introducing a cloud-based CPU/GPU framework that supports in silico optimization

2.15 Afternoon Refreshments & Networking

Bridging Chemistry & Biology to Facilitate First-Time Hit Opportunities

3:45 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks

4:00 pm End of Conference Day Two

Day One
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