Drug Discovery Chemistry | Cambridge Healthtech Institute

From Discovery to Lessons Learned

Using fragment-based technologies for drug design has an established place in the toolkit of drug discovery. However, as the field is maturing, a new set of questions is emerging, such as how to select the most suitable projects, are there new screening developments, how about weak binding compounds – how does one screen for those? What are the best technologies to combine – and are there new applications one needs to know about? What are the pro’s and con’s of using FBDD?

Record Attendance Expected this Year!

Small Molecule Approaches

CHI’s Anti-Inflammatories: Small Molecule Approaches continues to be the ONLY meeting in the inflammation field that focuses on the discovery and development of oral or small-molecule based drug candidates. Anti-body based therapies, while effective and safe, are costly and harder to administer than an oral pill. With the JAK inhibitors progressing in the clinic and perhaps one on the market soon, the promise of a new anti-inflammatory as good as the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS) but without the gastric side effects, is tangible. Other oral anti- inflammatory drug candidates are on the horizon as well. This year’s meeting will provide an update and highlight the medicinal chemistry optimizations that are allowing kinase inhibitor candidates to advance in clinical trials. Non-kinase targets will be a focus as well.

Record Attendance Expected this Year!

Novel Peptide Therapeutics

Peptide therapeutics are making a come-back due to chemical advances that enable new sorts of peptide-based structures that not only combine the best of small molecule and antibody drug candidates, but also have unique advantages. Like small molecules, these new peptide derivatives are small enough (under 5 kD) to cross the cell membrane, but large enough to disrupt protein-protein interactions, making them more useful against intracellular targets. These peptides also have the specificity of monoclonal antibodies, but without the stability issues. We will explore the chemistry and drug development advances behind these promising mid-sized compounds that are larger than “small molecules” but smaller than “biologics”.

Record Attendance Expected this Year!

Computational and Structural Approaches

The past few years have witnessed an increased pace of reports on different G protein coupled receptors or GPCR-ligand pairs whose crystal structures have been elucidated. How can this new structural information be harnessed for drug development against one of the most medically important but difficult to work with class of targets? This inaugural day and a half meeting will bring together computational, crystallographic modelers and medicinal chemists to learn and share how these advances are affecting the optimization of compounds that target GPCRs.

Record Attendance Expected this Year!

Charting the Chemical Space

What are the current challenges and bottlenecks in the big field of kinase inhibitors? Is it more important to target efficiency or to optimize specificity? What is the best way to modulate inhibitors and to interfere with the binding sites? What is still new and what are novel opportunities in the chemical space of kinases? Some of the current challenges the industry is facing are drug resistance, unwanted side effects, finding efficient screening and profiling technologies and discovering novel applications for existing inhibitors.

Record Attendance Expected this Year!

Targeting PPI for Therapeutic Interventions

Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s conference on Protein-Protein Interactions has established itself as a successful and well attended event year after year. Now in its sixth year, this conference is addressing current challenges in PPI such as interaction with binding sites, modulation of PPI, predicting PPI modes and what can be done to target PPI successfully.

Record Attendance Expected this Year!

NOBEL LAUREATE APRIL 16
plenary keynote

Jack Szostak Jack W. Szostak, Ph.D.

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Nobel Laureate

Jack Szostak Previews his Plenary Keynote for Drug Discovery Chemistry

event features

100+ Technical Presentations
Exclusive Exhibit & Poster Viewing
Interactive Roundtable, Breakout & Panel Discussions
45+ Scientific Posters
Case Studies & Best Practices
400 High-level Participants
Dedicated Networking Opportunities

short courses & symposium

Short courses on antibody-drug conjugates, molecular interactions, FBDD, immunology, macrocyclic compounds, allosteric modulators of GPCRs, antiviral drug discovery, and tools for epigenetic targets will be held on April 15 & 17.

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hotel & travel

Hilton San Diego Resort & Spa
1775 East Mission Bay Drive
San Diego, CA 92109
619.276.4010

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corporate sponsors

Participating as an exhibitor or sponsor will provide you excellent exposure and networking with 400 decision makers!

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WHAT YOUR COLLEAGUES HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS EVENT

Excellent update on new structures. - Project Head, Alcon Labs/Novartis

Great conference – CHI conference organizers achieved a good balance of coverage of the most exciting topics in HCV drug discovery and development. - Director, Infectious Disease, Southern Research

The Drug Discovery Chemistry conference offers a compact, dynamic event over 3 days that allows the scientific community an excellent opportunity to stay aware of current trends. - Director, Flamma

Being from a small liberal arts college, my business is the developing of the “next generation of drug hunters” – attending this conference has inspired me to inspire others – thank you, CHI! - Professor of Chemistry, St. Olaf College

A multi-disciplinary gathering where you can gain new insights and refresh on new ideas through networking and presentations. - Head of Computational Chemistry, Arisan Therapeutics

Fragment-Based Drug Discovery:

From Discovery to Lessons Learned

Anti-Inflammatories:

Small Molecule Approaches

Constrained Peptides and Macrocyclics Drug Discovery:

Novel Peptide Therapeutics

GPCR-Based Drug Design:

Computational and Structural Approaches

Kinase Inhibitor Chemistry:

Charting the Chemical Space

Protein-Protein Interactions: