Explore the Agenda

8:00 am Check In, Morning Coffee & Light Refreshments

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

Team Lead of Protein Science & Structural Biology, Confo Therapeutics

Integrating Computational Predictions & Experimental Validation to Prioritize High-Confidence Drug Design Decisions

9:00 am Combining Structural Biology, Biophysics & AI to Create Better Therapeutics Faster

Associate Director, Senior Scientific Leader Protein Structure & Biochemistry, Vx Discovery Tech, GSK
  • Integrate structural, biophysical, and computational data to improve decision-making and accelerate candidate progression
  • Leverage AI-powered predictions alongside experimental validation to identify high-quality drug candidates with greater confidence
  • Discover how leading organisations are reducing discovery timelines by combining orthogonal technologies across the drug design process

9:30 am Integrating Next-Generation Structure Prediction Models to Improve Molecular Design Decisions & Increase Confidence in Experimental Success

Associate Director, Structural Biology, Bicycle Therapeutics
  • Implement AlphaFold3, Boltz2, Chai, and Atheris for protein-ligand complex prediction, understanding when predictions are reliable versus when experimental validation is essential and navigating the landscape of available models
  • Learn how to integrate predictions from evolutionary models, atomic foundational models, and FEP-based approaches, selecting the right tool for your specific application and avoiding naive implementation that wastes resources
  • Understand the current limitations of AI-designed molecules and realistic timelines to first AI-derived drugs, managing leadership expectations while capitalising on genuine opportunities and addressing the critical data gap

10:00 am Morning Break & Networking

Accelerating Structure Determination with Next-Generation Technologies to Generate Actionable Insights Faster & Advance Drug Discovery Decisions with Confidence

11:00 am Accelerating High-Resolution Structural Insights with Cryo-EM to Expand Target Discovery & Shorten Drug Design Timelines

Director, Biophysics, AstraZeneca
  • Achieve sub-3Å structures in weeks instead of months by leveraging optimised cryo-EM workflows, dramatically accelerating your structure-guided design cycles
  • Overcome crystallization bottlenecks for membrane proteins and large complexes, accessing structural information on targets that were previously intractable by X-ray methods and expanding your target space
  • Learn strategies to manage data processing costs, storage requirements, and computational infrastructure, making cryo-EM economically viable for biotech organizations through hybrid cloud approaches and understanding true cost of ownership

11:30 am Unlocking Faster Drug Discovery with Cryo-EM: From Difficult Targets to Actionable Structures

Associate Director, Discovery Technologies, Astex Pharmaceuticals
  • Accelerate structure-based drug discovery by implementing streamlined cryo-EM workflows that can deliver near-atomic-resolution structures in weeks, enabling faster iteration from target validation to lead optimisation
  • Expand the range of druggable targets by applying cryo-EM to membrane proteins, multiprotein assemblies, and other challenging systems that are difficult or impossible to study using traditional crystallography
  • Build a cost-effective cryo-EM strategy by addressing the realities of large-scale data processing, storage, and compute demands. Explore hybrid cloud and on-premise approaches, infrastructure optimization, and total cost-of-ownership considerations for biotech teams

12:00 pm Unlocking Rational Design of Induced Proximity Drugs Through AI-Powered Structural Proteomics

Founder & Chief Technical Officer, Protai
  • Demonstrating how structural proteomics and AI can reveal the architecture and dynamics of induced proximity complexes that traditional structural approaches cannot capture
  • Establishing a rational design framework for molecular glues and targeted protein degraders to improve potency, selectivity, and developability
  • Showcasing how AI-guided structural insights accelerated Protai’s oncology pipeline, from protein complex modelling through in vivo efficacy and IND-enabling development

12:30 pm Lunch & Networking

Optimising Drug-Target Interactions to Create More Durable, Differentiated & Clinically Viable Therapeutics

1:30 pm Advancing Biophysical Characterisation Technologies to Decode Challenging Membrane Targets & Increase Confidence in Drug Discovery

Team Lead of Protein Science & Structural Biology, Confo Therapeutics
  • Master emerging techniques for detecting small molecule binding to GPCRs and membrane proteins, overcoming the characterisation challenges that plague these high-value targets representing 30% of marketed drugs
  • Learn how nanodisc technologies preserve native protein conformations and enable structural studies, improving the physiological relevance of your biophysical data and reducing false positives
  • Discover strategies to stabilise dynamic GPCR conformations using conformer technology and nanobodies, enabling structure determination of specific functional states for agonist versus antagonist design

2:00 pm Searching Trillion-Scale Chemical Space to Accelerate Rational Discovery of Novel Molecules

ICREA Professor & Group Leader, Barcelone Supercomputing Group
  • Advancing computational approaches for searching trillion-scale synthon libraries
  • Overcoming the challenges of sampling and screening complex microcycle structures
  • Leveraging expanded chemical space to uncover new opportunities for structure-guided drug discovery

2:30 pm Engineering Molecular Glue Therapeutics Through Structure-Guided Design to Unlock Novel Targets & Accelerate Pipeline Progression

Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Ambagon Therapeutics
  • Leveraging structural biology and computational modelling to systematically design and optimize molecular glue therapeutics.
  • Unlocking novel disease pathways by targeting proteins previously considered inaccessible to conventional drug discovery approaches.
  • Advancing a next-generation pipeline of molecular glue candidates through datadriven discovery and preclinical validation.

3:00 pm Chairs’ Closing Remarks

Team Lead of Protein Science & Structural Biology, Confo Therapeutics

3:15 pm Close of the Rational Based Drug Design Summit