8.30 Registration & Morning Coffee
9.00 - 12.00 Workshop A: Establish Your End-to-End Hit Discovery Funnel
Mastering the Art of Drug Hunting: Building a Discovery Pipeline to Execute a Successful Hit ID Campaign
In this engaging 3-hour workshop, you will explore the core principles of building
a step-by-step hit discovery funnel. We will collaborate to design a robust screening
cascade that effectively validates hits at each stage while reducing the likelihood of
false positives. We will also develop a set of guidelines that will ensure consistency,
reproducibility, and relevance throughout the validation process.
This workshop will gather curious minds to:
- Identify the key stages of your hit discovery funnel: hit identification, primary
screening, secondary screening, confirmation, and optimization - Brainstorm how to design and implement an effective screening cascade to validate
hits and avoid potential false positives - Create a clear criterion for hit identification to ensure consistency across your
screens through key parameters for various assays
Michael Lainchbury
Director, Medicinal
Chemistry
AstraZeneca
12.00 Lunch Break & Networking
1.00 - 4.00 Workshop B: Revolutionize Your Virtual Screening & AI Strategy
Scaling Hit Discovery with Computational Approaches: From Billion-Compound Spaces to Synthesizable Chemical Hits
In this dynamic 3-hour workshop, you will delve into the evolution of virtual screening
in hit identification, as computational techniques unlock access to vast, synthesisready
chemical libraries. We will examine how to intelligently refine large virtual hit
lists using molecular descriptors, data-driven models, and AI-assisted selection tools.
This workshop will gather curious minds to:
- Explore how computational tools and virtual libraries are redefining scale in hit
discovery with synthesizable compound spaces - Learn how to triage vast virtual hits using calculated properties, predictive
modelling, and AI-driven prioritization strategies - Discuss the practical challenges of translating virtual hits into synthesized, testable compounds, as well as the importance of iterative feedback
David Kombo
Principal Scientist
Sanofi