CONFERENCE DAY ONE - Wednesday, June 12
7:00 am Check-In & Light Breakfast
7:55 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
Integrating Structural Techniques to Capture Both Resolution & Speed to Effectively Illuminate the Complete Protein Picture
8:00 am Optimizing Protein Structure Determination by Integrating Techniques on a Case-by-Case Basis in Structure-Based Drug Design
Synopsis
- Highlighting the state of the art in protein structure determination
- Applying predictive and experimental techniques to support drug discovery research
- Case studies of leveraging multiple structural biology methods to support small molecule and biologics discovery approaches
8:30 am Session Reserved for ThermoFisher Scientific
9:00 am Harnessing the Structural Biology Toolbox to Accelerate Modality Agnostic Discovery
Synopsis
- Understanding structural chemistry and impact across modalities, from small molecules to vaccines and biologics
- Unraveling a solid biological understanding; using structure to understand druggability and MOA of tool molecules: multiple case studies
- Exploring SAR for small molecule and large molecule discovery
- Leveraging structure to accelerate discovery for soluble and membrane protein targets
9:30 am Speed Networking
Synopsis
Put a face to a name – this session is the perfect opportunity to get face-to-face time with key opinion leaders, leading companies, and innovative researchers in the structurebased drug design field. Establish meaningful connections to build upon for the rest of the conference and gain individual insight beyond the papers and press releases into the pioneering research and technique applications
10:15 am Morning Break
10:30 am Exploring AI & Cryo-EM Guided Drug Design
Synopsis
- Harnessing artificial intelligence and cryo-EM to identify novel druggable protein interfaces
- Developing proximity-inducing glues that stabilize important druggable protein-protein interfaces
- Exploring the mechanistic insights, preclinical development, and current status of our pipeline programs
11:00 am Unrestricted Cryo-EM: Fast & Scalable Structure Determination Using a Cloud-Native Cryo-EM Data Analysis Platform
Synopsis
- Accelerating structure determination with a cloud-native, integrated & no-code cryo-EM data analysis platform
- Expanding the toolkit: integrated solutions for structure prediction, studying protein dynamics, model building & refinement, and cryo-ET
- Case studies of structures determined with CryoCloud
11:30 am Advancing Drug Targets Into the Limelight By Harnessing Different Structural Techniques
Synopsis
- Discovery of HRO761, a novel, first-in-class clinical stage WRN inhibitor by structure and property-based design using ab initio conformational analysis
- Harnessing a reiterative screening strategy driven by structural analysis coupled with biophysics and biochemical mode of action analysis to identify a single non-covalent binder among thousands of artefact hits
- Using structure to rationalize mode of action and SAR to optimize the series
- A digital assay and generative chemistry to improve the physiochemical properties of our beyond rule of 5 lead, increasing oral exposure by a million-fold
12:00 pm Cryo-EM Structural Determination of Therapeutic Targets
Synopsis
- Elucidating the molecular mechanisms to direct drug design approaches.
- High-resolution small molecule and biologics structural determination
- Case studies for elucidation of GPCRs, cRAF, MutS-b, CDK7/CycH
12:30 pm Lunch & Networking
Evaluating Current & Future Structure-Based Techniques to Improve Efficiency, Resolution, & Speed in Drug Design
1:30 pm Panel Discussion: Debating the Challenges & Opportunities of the Structural Techniques Toolbox to Overcome Hurdles & Optimize Structure Based-Drug Design
Synopsis
- Dissecting the practical strengths and weaknesses of NMR, X-Ray crystallography, Cryo-EM, and Cryo-ET in current drug design projects
- Proposing innovative strategies to overcome challenges and synergize and integrate techniques
2:00 pm Session Reserved for Immuto-Scientific
2:30 pm Roundtable Discussions: Unlocking the Intricacies of Structural Techniques to Effectively Rationalize Drug Development
NMR
Synopsis
Challenges: sensitivity, sample requirements, lowresolution
Opportunities: protein dynamics, conformational changes, intrinsically disordered proteins, technology advancements to enhance sensitivity and resolution
X-Ray Crystallography
Synopsis
Challenges: suitability of proteins for crystallization limiting therapeutic targets, static confirmations of proteins
Opportunities: Advancements in microfluidics and microcrystallization to study smaller sample volumes and faster growth times, integrating computational techniques for protein dynamics
Cryo-EM
Synopsis
Challenges: cost, image processing complexity, sample preparation, grids
Opportunities: visualization of dynamic proteins, membrane proteins, large protein complexes
Cryo-ET
Synopsis
Challenges: maintaining cellular integrity and protein localization, noisy datasets, equipment
Opportunities: visualization of cellular context, protein dynamics in situ
Predicting the Future: Utilizing Computational & Predictive AI Tools for Protein Structure Prediction & Docking
3:00 pm Session Overview To Be Confirmed
3:30 pm Afternoon Break & Poster Session
Synopsis
Connect with peers in a relaxed atmosphere and continue to forge new and existing relationships while exploring the latest in structure-based drug design approaches and research advancements
To submit a poster, please contact info@hansonwade.com
4:00 pm Identifying & Predicting Protein Structures Using Computational Methods to Drive Research
Synopsis
- Implementing AlphaFold
- Identifying how compounds will bind using computational and AI techniques
- Discussing the limitations and opportunities of harnessing new technology to predict compound binding
4:30 pm Harnessing AlphaFold as a Powerful Tool to Initially Approach Unknown Structures & Generate Hypotheses
Synopsis
- Assessing the strengths and limitations of AlphaFold in structure-based drug design
- Determining the fold of structures using AlphaFold and looking to site changes and potential confirmational changes
- Identifying the efficiency to predict different states, complex systems, proteins in different environments to understand if AlphaFold can address these problems
5:00 pm Panel Discussion: Evaluating the Wave of Computational & Predictive AI Tools in Structure Prediction to Optimize the Usability & Practicality of the Approaches
Synopsis
- Focusing on hard to study and hard to drug proteins to navigate the efficacy of tools to predict dynamic proteins
- Using models as a template when processing Cryo-EM, X-Ray Crystallography data to build protein models
- Debating whether in practice structural models can effectively and efficiently predict novel protein interactions to get the most out of the structural data