ACMEDI-YMCC | EFMC-YSN Programme for Early Career Researchers
Chair
Dr Melissa GRENIER-DAVIES
GLAXOSMITHKLINE, Cambridge, MA, United States
08:00 am
Panel Discussion - "Landing a Job in Industry"
Dr Chris DE GRAAF
SOSEI HEPTARES, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Chris de Graaf has over 21 years of experience as a computational chemist, of which over 16 years in GPCR drug discovery research. Following a PhD in computational medicinal chemistry and molecular toxicology at VU University Amsterdam, Chris did his postdoc at the University of Strasbourg and AstraZeneca on the development and application of novel GPCR structural modeling and virtual ligand screening techniques. Chris de Graaf then was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department Medicinal Chemistry at VU University Amsterdam to develop and apply computational medicinal chemistry and structural bio/cheminformatics methods to complement medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, biophysics, and structural biology driven GPCR drug discovery research programs. Since 2018 Chris de Graaf is Head of Computational Chemistry at Sosei Heptares, world leader in GPCR Structure-Based Drug Discovery, where he is leading the development and application of bio/cheminformatics and CADD approaches across the GPCRome to help Sosei Heptares advance a broad and deep pipeline of partnered and in-house drug candidates in multiple therapeutic areas. Chris de Graaf is the author of more than 140 scientific publications.
Dr Abdellatif EL MARROUNI
MERCK & CO., West Point, United States
Abdellatif El Marrouni is currently a Principal Scientist in Discovery Chemistry at Merck & Co., Inc. (West Point, PA). He is working on inventing drug therapies for infectious diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. Abdellatif is passionated about the use of data sciences on drug discovery including in silico medicinal chemistry design strategies. He received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry under the guidance of Prof. Montserrat Heras (University of Girona, Spain) and Prof. Janine Cossy (ESPCI-Paris, France). His postdoctoral research (2012−2015) in the lab of Prof. K. C. Nicolaou (TSRI, La Jolla and Rice University, Houston, US) focused on the total synthesis of complex bioactive natural products. He is a member of the Medicinal Chemistry division of the American Chemical Society.
Dr Malin LEMURELL
ASTRAZENECA, Gothenburg, Sweden
Dr Darby SCHMIDT
SONATA THERAPEUTICS, Cambridge, MA, United States
Session 4 - Drug Targets in GPCR Signaling
Session chair
Prof. György KESERU
HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, Budapest, Hungary
09:00 am
IL09 - New Hot Targets? Medicinal Chemistry of G Protein-Coupled Receptors Involved in Immunity and Cancer
Prof. Christa MÜLLER
UNIVERSITY OF BONN, Bonn, Germany
Christa Müller studied pharmacy at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chemistry from the same university. After postdoctoral stays with John W. Daly in the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA (1989-1990 and 1992), she became Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Würzburg University in Germany. Since 1998 she is full professor of Pharmaceutical & Medicinal Chemistry at Bonn University and a founder of the Pharma-Center Bonn and the Bonn International Graduate School of Drug Sciences (BIGS DrugS). Her scientific interests are focused on the medicinal chemistry, structural biology, and molecular pharmacology of purine-binding membrane proteins (purine receptors, ectonucleotidases), orphan G protein-coupled receptors and G proteins, and recently also on coronavirus therapeutics. Disease indications include neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases, cancer, and infections. She has published more than 500 scientific papers and patents in the field of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. Among a number of awards, she received the Nauta Pharmacochemistry Award for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology by the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) in 2018. Since 2021, she acts as Editor-in-Chief of ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science.
09:30 am
IL10 - Frontier SBDD across the Orthosteric and Allosteric GPCRome
Dr Chris DE GRAAF
SOSEI HEPTARES, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Chris de Graaf has over 21 years of experience as a computational chemist, of which over 16 years in GPCR drug discovery research. Following a PhD in computational medicinal chemistry and molecular toxicology at VU University Amsterdam, Chris did his postdoc at the University of Strasbourg and AstraZeneca on the development and application of novel GPCR structural modeling and virtual ligand screening techniques. Chris de Graaf then was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department Medicinal Chemistry at VU University Amsterdam to develop and apply computational medicinal chemistry and structural bio/cheminformatics methods to complement medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, biophysics, and structural biology driven GPCR drug discovery research programs. Since 2018 Chris de Graaf is Head of Computational Chemistry at Sosei Heptares, world leader in GPCR Structure-Based Drug Discovery, where he is leading the development and application of bio/cheminformatics and CADD approaches across the GPCRome to help Sosei Heptares advance a broad and deep pipeline of partnered and in-house drug candidates in multiple therapeutic areas. Chris de Graaf is the author of more than 140 scientific publications.
10:00 am
OC05 - Best-In-Class Orally Bioavailable CXCR4 Antagonists to Treat Renal Cell Carcinoma
Dr Eric MILLER
EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, Atlanta, United States
Dr Miller’s research began in natural product total synthesis in Alison Frontier’s Lab of at the University of Rochester, where he earned a B.S. in Chemistry (2009). He went on to grad school at Emory University, joining Dennis Liotta’s Lab and applying organic synthesis to discover new medicines. After earning his Ph.D. (2015), Dr. Miller continued on as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Liotta, in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, to develop best-in-class orally bioavailable CXCR4 antagonists. Continuing this research and initiating several new discovery programs in parallel, he quickly rose through the staff scientist ranks and was recently promoted to Instructor at the Junior Faculty level in the Emory University School of Medicine. From pure organic synthesis, to medicinal chemistry, to pharmacology, immunology, and chemical biology, Dr. Miller’s career is dedicated to training the next generation of biomedical scientists by leveraging chemical innovation to discover, develop, and advance novel therapeutic agents to treat viral infections, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer.
10:15 am
OC06 - Targeting Sodium Binding Pocket in Mu Opioid Receptor to Design Safer Analgesics
Dr Susruta MAJUMDAR
UHSP & WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, Saint Louis, United States
Susruta (Sush) Majumdar is an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology at UHSP and Washington University. Dr. Majumdar received his PhD from University of Florida College of Pharmacy, Gainesville in Medicinal Chemistry and then did a Postdoc in Neuropharmacology from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NY. The Majumdar lab focuses on the Chemical Biology of Opioid Receptors integrating Medicinal Chemistry with Structural biology and Pharmacology to develop safer analgesics as well probes which show biased signaling.
10:30 am
Coffee break & Exhibition
Session 5 - Organic Synthesis Impacting Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Session chair
Prof. Rui MOREIRA
UNIVERSITY OF LISBON, Lisbon, Portugal
11:00 am
IL11 - Photocatalysis in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Synthesis under a New Light
Dr Giulia BERGONZINI
ASTRAZENECA, Gothenburg, Sweden
Giulia Bergonzini is an Associate Principal Scientist at Early CVRM Medicinal Chemistry R&D BioPharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca (Sweden) where she focuses on medicinal chemistry and synthetic organic chemistry with a special interest in visible-light photocatalysis and its application to medicinal chemistry projects. She is currently seconding to Discovery Sciences, where she took on a Director role leading the DNA-Encoded and Compound Collection Libraries team within Compound Synthesis and Management.
Giulia obtained her BSc and MSc in chemistry from the University of Bologna (Italy) and her PhD in organic chemistry and catalysis at ICIQ-Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (Spain) in 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Melchiorre. She did a sabbatical at Boston University (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Corey Stephenson and carried out her postdoctoral research at Gothenburg University (Sweden) before joining GSK (UK) as a Process Development Chemist. In 2017 she started her career at AstraZeneca (Sweden) as a Senior Research Scientist. Current academic collaborations include Prof. Burkhard König (University of Regensburg) and Prof. Belén Martín-Matute (Stockholm University).1,2
[1] M. Schmalzbauer et al., Redox-neutral Photocatalytic C–H Carboxylation of Arenes and Styrenes with CO2. Chem 2020, 6, 2658-2672.
2 T. D. Svejstrup et al., Effects of Light Intensity and Reaction Temperature on Photoreactions in Commercial Photoreactors. ChemPhotoChem 2021, 5, 808-814.
11:30 am
IL12 - HTE Chemistry to Accelerate Medicinal Chemistry Programs
Dr Fabio LIMA
NOVARTIS, Basel, Switzerland
During his MSc at the University of Toulouse and ENSIACET Fabio went on to do a 6-month placement with Prof. Stephen Buchwald at MIT to work on C–N cross-coupling reactions (2013). He then did a PhD with Prof. Steven Ley at the University of Cambridge, UK (2014–2018), where he developed photoredox C–C cross-coupling reactions using boronic acid derivatives. He then completed a Postdoctoral stay with Dr. Joerg Sedelmeier at Novartis to develop new flow chemistry methods to access functionalized heteroarenes and applied these methods to the alternative synthesis on manufacturing scale of INC280 (Capmatinib).
Fabio then joined the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in 2019 to start the Catalysis Lab for Global Discovery Chemistry. Since then, he has built a state-of-the-art high-throughput experimentation (HTE) Chemistry platform focusing on quick methodology development to impact medicinal chemistry projects across the NIBR portfolio. Notably, his laboratory developed workflows and methods to rapidly tackle Cross-Coupling reactions, Asymmetric Hydrogenations, and Carbonylations. Over the years his methodologies enabled the synthesis of challenging targets, efficient SAR explorations and scale-ups, as well as (Micro)libraries campaigns in multiple projects unlocking the access to challenging chemical matter.
During his career Fabio co-authored 12 publications and 4 patent applications and is currently involved in academic collaborations with Prof. Paul Knochel and Prof. Marcos Suero, he is also representing Novartis on the advisory board of the Open Reaction Database.
12:00 pm
OC07 - New Precision Anti-TB Agents by Allosteric Inhibition of Glutamate-5-Kinase Enzyme
Prof. Concepcion GONZALEZ-BELLO
UNIVERSIDADE DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA - CIQUS, santiago de compostela, Spain
Concepción González-Bello obtained her PhD at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in 1994. She did two predoctoral stays, first in the University of Gent (Belgium, 1991) with Prof. M. Vandewalle and then in the Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, USA, 1992) with Prof. K. C. Nicolaou. After a postdoctoral stay in the University of Cambridge (UK) with Prof. Chris Abell (1994-96), she joined the University of Santiago de Compostela as an Assistant Professor in 1996, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2003 and to full Professor in 2022.
She is author of about 100 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, 14 chapters in books and three European patents. She is one of the managers of the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI).
Her main research interest is to develop precision antibacterial agents by selectively disabling unexplored targets in pathogenic bacteria by using diverse techniques such as protein X-ray crystallography, simulations of biomacromolecues and QM/MM studies.
12:15 pm
OC08 - Impact of gem-Difluoromethylene Group on Physicochemical Properties in Medchem-Relevant Building Blocks
Dr Sergey RYABUKHIN
ENAMINE LTD, Kyiv, Ukraine
Sergey Ryabukhin shares his time between academia and industry. He is a senior scientific advisor at Enamine LTD and professor, head of the supramolecular chemistry department at the Institute of High Technologies, Taras Shevchenko National University Kyiv. He has 15+ years' experience in managing combinatorial chemistry departments as well as chemical outsourcing projects, having previously worked in different leading positions. Now he is also co-head of Enamine's staff & training program. Prof. Ryabukhin is an expert in combinatorial and medicinal chemistry, early drug discovery, organometallics (organofluorine, organosilicon, and organoboron), heterocyclic chemistry, new methodologies in organic synthesis, catalysis, chemical education
12:30 pm
12:45 pm
Company Workshop by Schrödinger: Augmenting Medicinal Chemistry with Digital Chemistry: A Lead Optimization Design Challenge for D-Amino Acid Oxidase Inhibitors
Mr Wade MILLER
SCHRÖDINGER, Cambridge, United States
Session 6 - Enabling Chemistries for Chemical Biology Research
Session chair
Prof. Daniel HARKI
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, MN, United States
02:00 pm
IL13 - Chemical Probes Enabling Drug Target Discovery and Validation
Prof. Edward TATE
IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON, London, United Kingdom
02:30 pm
IL14 - Generating Stem-Like T Cells with Small-Molecule Modulators for Cancer Immunotherapy
Prof. Peng WU
THE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, La Jolla, CA, United States
Peng Wu is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine. Dr. Wu received his Ph.D. from the Scripps Research Institute in 2005. From August 2005 to September 2008, Dr. Wu was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. The research in the Wu laboratory integrates synthetic chemistry with glycobiology to explore the cellular and molecular mechanisms that control immune responses toward cancer and human pathogens. His most recent recognitions include Horace S. Isbell Award (American Chemical Society), Glycobiology Significant Achievement Award, and Horizon Prize (the Royal Society of Chemistry, with the teams of Sharpless, Kelly, Moses, Lu, Wolan, Hammock and Zuilhof).
03:00 pm
OC09 - Targeting Receptor Complexes with Therapeutic Peptides
Prof. Kristian STROMGAARD
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN, Copenhagen, Denmark
Kristian Strřmgaard obtained an MSc degree in Chemical Research from University College London, and continued as a PhD student in medicinal chemistry, part-time at H. Lundbeck. He did a post doc at Columbia University (New York), and shortly after, he was appointed H. Lundbeck Professor at the age of 36 to establish research in Chemical Biology. He won the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science (Univ. Cph.) in 2009. In 2012, he co-founded Avilex Pharma. In 2014, he was appointed Director of Center for Biopharmaceuticals, where he has headed a research center on peptide and protein engineering. Recently, he was visiting professor at Harvard Medical School (Boston) to explore medical research and innovation. A particular focus since 2006 has been on research management, including a course at Harvard Business School and he is an often-used speaker and teacher in courses on research management. In 2021 he was awarded the 2021 University of Copenhagen Innovation Award and appointed Novo Nordisk Foundation Distinguished Innovator.
03:15 pm
OC10 - Azetidin-2-Ones as Quenched Activity-Based Probes to Profile Human Neutrophil Elastase in Proteomes
Ms Rita FÉLIX
IMED.ULISBOA - RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR MEDICINES, Lisbon, Portugal
03:30 pm
Coffee break & Exhibition
04:00 pm
PL03 -Carbohydrates in Health and Disease
Prof. Laura KIESSLING
MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States
Laura Kiessling is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a member of Koch
Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Prior to
MIT, she was the Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry and the Hilldale Professor of Chemistry at
the University of Wisconsin, where she also directed the Keck Center for Chemical Genomics. She has
received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1998) and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2008).
In 2018, Kiessling was the first woman to receive the Tetrahedron Award. Kiessling is a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003), a Member of the American Academy of Microbiology
(2007), the American Philosophical Society (2017), the National Academy of Sciences (2007) and the
National Academy of Medicine (2022).
Kiessling began her undergraduate studies at UW-Madison but transferred to MIT after spring break trip
to Boston, because she saw so many women excelling in science there. She earned her BS in Chemistry
from MIT where she carried out research into asymmetric organic transformations with Professor Bill
Roush. She followed her interest in organic synthesis to Yale, where she worked in the group of Stuart
Schreiber. Her graduate research laid the foundation for the group’s synthesis of the ene-diyne core
natural product calicheamicin γ, a DNA-cleaving compound with anticancer activity. She postulated that
the sugars of this natural product were critical for DNA recognition, a hypothesis that was later borne out
in subsequent research by the Danishefsky and Kahne groups. Kiessling’s interest in DNA recognition led
her to postdoctoral studies at Caltech with Peter Dervan. There she synthesized the first non-natural bases
to recognize mixed DNA sequences via triple helix formation.
Kiessling’s graduate and postdoctoral studies sparked an interest in understanding the recognition
mechanisms of glycans. Because individual protein-glycan interactions are weak (Kd 10-3 M), she sought
to understand and leverage multivalency to explore these processes. She recognized that defined
multivalent ligands could serve as mechanistic probes and leads. Her approach to generate such ligands
was to use controlled living polymerizations, such as the ring-opening metathesis polymerization
(ROMP). Indeed, she was the first to use ROMP to synthesize bioactive polymers. She also pioneered the
concept of “post-polymerization modification” to generate a series of polymers whose activities can be
compared directly.
Kiessling used her access to synthetic ligands to show that low affinity, multivalent binding interactions
can be remarkably specific. She also showed that multivalent ligands generated through this method could
mimic mucins, and she generated the most potent ligands known for L-selectin, a protein involved in the
inflammatory/immune response. These ligands functioned by recruiting an endogenous cell surface
protease—an early demonstration that protease recruitment can downregulate a protein and the first
example on the cell surface.
Kiessling studies of multivalent recognition led her to introduce the concept of using bifunctional ligand
to recruit natural antibodies to cells for destruction of tumor cells. In addition, she has shown that viruslike
particles can be adorned with glycans to deliver antigens to dendritic cells. The result is an anticancer
(Th2) immune response. In summary, Kiessling’s interdisciplinary research has elucidated and exploited
the mechanisms of cell surface recognition processes. She has pioneered the synthesis of multiple types of
molecular arrays and used them to elucidate the principles underlying multivalent interactions. She
leveraged these findings to achieve cell specific recognition, elicit and illuminate mechanisms underlying
signal transduction. Her recent studies focus on understanding the role of multivalent lectins in cell
recognition.
04:45 pm
Poster session 2 (even numbers)
06:00 pm
End of the scientific programme
08:00 pm