Confirmed Speakers

Rebecca Buller is a biological chemist and Professor for Biotechnological Methods, Systems and Processes at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Rebecca Buller studied chemistry at the Westfälische-Wilhelms Universität Münster (D) and the University of California Santa Barbara (US). After completing her PhD with a focus on enzyme engineering at the ETH in Zurich (CH), Rebecca Buller accepted a position as laboratory head at the flavour and fragrance company Firmenich (CH). In 2015 she relocated to the Zurich University of Applied Sciences where she founded the Competence Center for Biocatalysis (CCBIO). Rebecca serves as an expert on numerous panels, among them the SCNAT Chemistry Platform, the working group Biotransformations of the DECHEMA, and she is founding board member of the Swiss Women in Chemistry. Rebecca and her group seek to expand the biocatalytic toolbox by sourcing and engineering enzymes for synthetic applications using chemical knowledge and bioinformatic tools. Their research program has been recognized with multiple awards, including the 2023 Roche Sustainability Award and the Green & Sustainable Chemistry Award of the Swiss Chemical Society in 2024.

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Samuele Cazzamalli (PhD) is the Head of Chemistry at Philochem AG (https://www.philochem.ch/), the Swiss subsidiary of the Philogen group (https://www.philogen.com/), acting as a discovery center with a focus on chemical pharmaceutical products and technologies. At Philochem, Samuele’s group focuses on the discovery of novel tumor-targeting small molecule ligands through the use of DNA-Encoded Chemical Libraries. Samuele earned his PhD at ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Dario Neri, where he wrote a thesis on non-internalizing antibody- and small molecule-drug conjugates for the treatment of cancer. Samuele has authored more than 40 scientific articles and has brought three compounds in Phase I clinical trials. His group is currently using high-affinity small organic ligands to develop small molecule diagnostic and therapeutic compounds against solid tumors.

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Craig M. Crews is Professor of MCDB and Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacology at Yale University. His discovery and implementation of the PROTACs technology revolutionized the field by identifying a new method for affecting protein function. The fact that this technology has been widely adapted and investigated not only within the pharmaceutical industry, but also in academia, demonstrates the significance and impact of this work. While no drugs have yet been approved, several are in development and these molecules are progressing, because they are effective and safe. He also played a key role in the discovery of carfilzomib, an approved proteasome inhibitor for the treatment of multiple myeloma.

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David W. C. MacMillan was born in Bellshill, Scotland, and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he worked with Dr. Ernie Colvin. In 1990, he began his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine, before undertaking a postdoctoral position with Professor Dave Evans at Harvard University in 1996. He began his independent career at the University of California, Berkeley, in July of 1998 before moving to Caltech in 2000 as the Earle C. Anthony Chair of Organic Chemistry. In 2006, Dave moved to Princeton University as the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Chemistry. He served as Department Chair from 2010–2015 and is currently the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University of Chemistry. Dave shares the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Benjamin List “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.” His research interests encompass a wide range of organic chemistry, including the development of new areas in organocatalysis and photoredox catalysis.

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As Global Head of Therapeutics Discovery within Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicine, Emma Parmee is currently responsible for execution of the discovery portfolio and delivery of development candidates across all therapeutic modalities including small molecules, biologics, peptides, and RNA, gene, and cell therapies. Emma joined J&J in November 2020 following a 28-year career as a medicinal chemist at Merck Research Labs (MRL), most recently serving as Head of Discovery Chemistry. She began at MRL in the cardiometabolic area where she was privileged to work on the DPP-4 inhibitor project and contribute to the discovery of JANUVIA™ (sitagliptin) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Her group also delivered the small molecule CGRP antagonists, UBRELVY™ (ubrogepant) and QULIPTA™ (atogepant) used for the treatment of migraine. Emma obtained her D. Phil. Degree in 1990 at the University of Oxford and then completed a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at MIT under Prof. Satoru Masmune.

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Iris Alroy, Ph.D. has over 25 years of experience in drug discovery, preclinical and early clinical development. Dr. Alroy has served as co-founder and CSO of Anima since 2015, supervising drug discovery and pipeline development in the emerging field of mRNA translation regulation. Prior to Anima, she acted as VP of Discovery at Proteologics and Pharmos Corp. and CEO of several startup biotech companies, including Fusimab, Ltd. and ProMining Therapeutics Ltd. Dr. Alroy earned her doctorate in Cell Biology from Cornell University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Weizmann Institute. She has authored more than 20 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals.

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Rommie E. Amaro holds the Distinguished Professorship in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. She grew up on the south side of Chicago and received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering (1999) and her Ph.D. in Chemistry (2005) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Amaro was a NIH postdoctoral fellow with Prof. J. Andrew McCammon at UC San Diego from 2005-2009, and started her independent lab in 2009.

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Professor Giuseppe Battaglia (GB) is an ICREA Research Professor leading a research group at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia since 2019. He is also an honorary professor at University College London and a visiting professor at the West China Hospital Medical School in Chengdu, affiliated with the Sichuan University. GB's multidisciplinary team consists of chemists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and biologists. They investigate how molecules, macromolecules, viruses, vesicles, and whole cells move through the physiological barriers of the human body. The team uses advanced microscopic tools with theoretical and computational physics to investigate biological transport phenomena at the molecular level, cell membranes, and entire organisms. The research group applies the knowledge gained to develop innovative medicines that combine soft matter physics and synthetic chemistry. GB obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Sheffield and held various positions at the same university. He was an assistant professor from 2006 to 2009 in the Kroto Institute and then became an associate professor from 2009 to 2011 and a full professor from 2011 to 2022 in the Krebs Institute, which was part of the School of Bioscience. From 2011 to 2022, GB held the position of Professor of Molecular Bionic at University College London, where he was affiliated with various departments and institutes, including the Department of Chemistry, the Institute for Physics of Living Systems, the Institute of Molecular and Structural Biology, and the City of London Cancer Research UK Centre. GB has received several awards, including the EPSRC Established Fellowship in 2016, the ERC Starting Grant in 2011, the Consolidator Award in 2018, and multiple proof-of-concepts awards. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers, and he has been involved as a named inventor in 14 patent applications. GB has received numerous accolades, including the HFSP Young Investigator Award in 2009, the APS/IoP Polymer Physics Exchange Award Lecture in 2011, the GSK Emerging Scientist Award in 2011, the Award for Special Contribution to Polymer Therapeutics in 2012, the RSC Thomas Graham Award Lecture in 2014, and the SCI/RSC McBain Medal for Colloid Science in 2015. In recognition of his significant contributions to the field, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017 and a fellow of the Institute for Materials, Minerals, and Mining in 2018. GB also founded Vianautis Bio Ltd, a biotech company in Cambridge, UK, specializing in gene therapy.

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María Blanco obtained a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Paris-Sud (France). Following that, she underwent post-doctoral training at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. She then joined the University of Navarra, where she currently holds the position of Full Professor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology. Maria Blanco focuses her research on the development of nanomedicines for cancer treatment (particularly childhood cancer), as well as tissue regeneration of the heart and brain through tissue engineering. Throughout her career, she has authored over 170 research papers and book chapters, 5 patents, and presented over 220 communications at scientific conferences, often as an invited speaker. Her contributions to drug delivery research have been recognized with numerous national and international awards. Maria is a member of the National Academy of Pharmacy of France and Galicia, and the Academy of Medicine of France. In 2021, she became a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and in 2022, she was elected as a member of the Academia Europaea. Since January 2023, she has been the President of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS).

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Maria-Laura Bolognesi is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Ph.D. programme Director at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna. Her primary field of research is the development of small molecules for the neurodegenerative and neglected tropical diseases. Maria Laura has been awarded multiple Distinguished Visiting Professor Fellowships: at the Complutense University of Madrid in 2009, at the University of Brasilia in 2014 and at the Université Caen Normandie in 2018. Currently, she serves as President of the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society, Associate Editor of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (ACS) and sits in the Advisory Board of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC).

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Kelly Chibale is a full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where he holds the Neville Isdell Chair in African-centric Drug Discovery & Development. He is also a Schmidt Futures AI2050 Senior Fellow and the Founder and Director of the UCT Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Centre, a Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Centre for Global Health Discovery. Kelly’s research interests are in infectious disease drug discovery and the development of tools and models to contribute to improving treatment outcomes in people of African descent (PAD). Kelly obtained his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in the UK. This was followed by postdoctoral stints at the University of Liverpool in the UK and at The Scripps Research Institute in the USA. He was a Sandler Sabbatical Fellow at the University of California San Francisco, a US Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and a Visiting Professor at Pfizer in the UK.

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Gemma graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2016 with a Master’s degree in Chemistry, having completed an industrial placement in analytical chemistry. Following a year-long internship at Mondelez International, Gemma joined GSK’s process chemistry department as a member of the high-throughput chemistry (HTC) group. In 2019, Gemma joined GSK’s Discovery HTC team, where she worked on solving synthetic chemistry problems through the use of HTC, as well as designing and synthesising compound libraries across a range of therapy areas. Gemma currently focusses on implementing automation and emerging technologies to facilitate the synthesis of challenging compounds, and is a subject matter expert for photochemistry across GSK’s medicinal chemistry department.

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David Craik (AO, FRS, FAA) is a Professor of Chemistry at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science. He obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from La Trobe University, Australia and undertook postdoctoral studies at Florida State and Syracuse Universities before taking up a lectureship at the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1983. He was appointed Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Head of School in 1988. He moved to University of Queensland in 1995 to set up a new biomolecular NMR laboratory. His work focuses on the discovery, structural characterization and applications of peptides and proteins, with a particular focus on cyclic peptides, toxins and NMR in drug design.

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Andreas Gollner is Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Solgate since 2023. His research filed and interests are Drug Hunting, SLC drugs, Protein-Protein Inhibitors, Targeted Protein Degradation
Former Roles and Education:
Scientific Director at Boehringer Ingelheim Vienna (Oncology)
PostDoc at Columbia University, NYC (Scott Snyder Group)
PhD: University of Vienna (Mulzer Group)

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Sabine Hadida, Ph.D., is a Senior Vice President and the Site Head for Research at Vertex in San Diego. Since joining Vertex in 2002, Dr. Hadida has led the company’s chemistry team that is working in cystic fibrosis (CF) and pain. During that time, the team has discovered the now-approved medicines, KALYDECO, ORKAMBI, SYMDEKO and TRIKAFTA as well as multiple medicines in pre-clinical and clinical development. In June 2022, Dr. Hadida transitioned to lead the San Diego site. Previously, Dr. Hadida held a research scientist position at Combichem, Inc. in San Diego, which later was bought by DuPont Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers-Squibb, and Deltagen Research Laboratories. Dr. Hadida received her Bachelor, Master, and PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Barcelona, Spain. Additionally, she spent two years conducting postdoctoral research on fluorous chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Hadida has published over 30 peer reviewed papers and is inventor of over 60 U.S. patents. She received several scientific awards, most recently the 2024 Breakthrough award in Life Sciences, the 2023 ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award for excellence in innovation and success in Vertex’s development of TRIKAFTA, and the 2023 Wiley Prize for Biomedical Sciences. She has also received the 2022 MCBD Drug Hunter Award, the 2019 Distinguished Scientist Award by the American Chemistry Society, San Diego Chapter, the 2013 ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award by the American Chemistry Society for excellence in innovation and success in Vertex’s development of KALYDECO, the Vertex Platinum Research Award, and the Vertex Palladium Leadership Award.

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Alexander Hillisch is Head of Global CADD (computer-aided drug design) at UCB overseeing sections in Brussels, London and Boston. His teams are working on small molecule, targeted protein degraders and antibody drug discovery in disease areas such as inflammation and neurology. From 2019-2022 he headed the department for “Computational Molecular Design” at Bayer AG, Wuppertal, Germany. Between 2003 and 2019 he was head of Computational Chemistry as part of Medicinal Chemistry Wuppertal at Bayer. His team was involved in computer-aided drug design of small molecules in the areas of cardiology, oncology and ophthalmology. From 1998 to 2003 he led a research group at EnTec GmbH, Jena, Germany, a subsidiary of Schering AG, Berlin. He conducted his Ph.D. thesis at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMB), Jena in the area of biophysics (NMR, FRET) and molecular modeling. Alexander Hillisch received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry with Prof. Peter Schuster in 1998 and his diploma in Pharmacy in 1995 from the University of Vienna, Austria. He is co-author of ~50 research papers, 2 books and 63 pharmaceutical compound patents. He contributed to the discovery of one marketed product (Finerenone, Kerendia®) and 6 clinical development candidates, amongst those Asundexian, a novel oral FXIa inhibitor currently in Phase III clinical trials. Alexander teaches “Molecular pharmacology and Drug Design” at the University of Cologne from which he received a honorary professorship in 2010.

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Lyn Jones completed PhD studies in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Nottingham, before starting his postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute, California in chemical biology. He joined Pfizer Sandwich (UK) as a medicinal chemistry team leader, eventually becoming Head of Chemical Biology and Lead Discovery Technologies. He transferred to Pfizer Cambridge (USA) to become Head of Rare Disease Chemistry and Head of Chemical Biology. He then helped establish Jnana Therapeutics as Head of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, before moving to his current roles as Director of the Center for Protein Degradation, Institute Scientist, and Principal Investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. His research interests include the creation and application of chemistry-based technologies, such as covalent protein labeling modalities and induced-proximity pharmacology, with the objective of expanding the druggable proteome.

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Jan Kihlberg holds a chair in Organic Chemistry at Uppsala University, Sweden since 2013. His main research interests are to understand what properties convey cell permeability, aqueous solubility and target binding to drugs in the beyond rule of 5 space and to translate this knowledge into guidelines for design. His group is also involved in synthesis of macrocycles as ligands for difficult-to-drug targets. He has published over 200 peer–reviewed publications and book chapters. He obtained his PhD in organic chemistry at Lund University in 1988, then spent two years as a PostDoc at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa before establishing his independent group at Lund University in 1991. In 1996 he became full professor in Bioorganic Chemistry at Umeå University, then he moved to AstraZeneca R&D in Gothenburg in 2003 but maintained a research group at Umeå University until 2011. At AstraZeneca Prof. Kihlberg held roles as Director, Head of Medicinal Chemistry for seven years and Director, Competitive Intelligence and Business Foresight Analysis for three years.

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Sun-Joon Min is a full professor, Department of Chemical & Molecular Engineering, Hanyang University ERICA, Republic of Korea. He received his PhD from UCLA under the supervision of Professor Michael E. Jung in 2005. After he completed his postdoc under Professor Samuel J. Danishefsky at Columbia University, he joined KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technology) as a principal research scientist. He currently serve as a director in the Center for Nanotheranostics in Hanyang Institute for Precision Therapeutics (HY-IPT) and as an associate editor in BKCS (Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society). He has been working on design, synthesis and biological evaluation of small molecules targeting various diseases such as neurodegenerative, inflammatory and infectious diseases. His research is also focusing on development of chemical probes for detection of biological targets.

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Dr. Murali Ramachandra is the CEO at Aurigene Oncology Limited, based in Bangalore, India. At Aurigene Oncology, Murali and his team is focussed on developing novel cancer therapeutics for immune-oncology and precision medicine. Murali received his PhD from University of Idaho (USA), and post-doctoral training from University of Kansas Medical Center and DuPont Experimental Station. Prior to his current role, he was the Chief Scientific Officer at Aurigene, and positions of increasing responsibility at Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals, USA and US National Cancer Institute. He has contributed to the identification of 19 innovative drug candidates that are undergoing global clinical development. Murali is the author of 75 research publications in peer-reviewed international journals and an inventor of 30 granted international patents.

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Professor, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University; Professor Yu Rao received his BA degree in 1999 from Shandong Medical University and his master degree in 2002 from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University under the supervision of Prof. Ji-Xiang Chen. He obtained the Ph.D. degree from University of Georgia under the supervision of Prof. Geert-Jan Boons (2007). He then carried out post doctorial research work at Sloan-kettering Cancer Center under the supervision of Prof. Sameul J. Danishefsky (2007-2009). He joined Tsinghua University as a principal investigator in January of 2010. Professor Yu Rao's laboratory has long been committed to the targeted protein degradation (TPD) technology, building the PROTAC research platform. Through the development of new protein degradation technology, his group hopes to solve some long-standing biological and medical problems. Professor Rao serves as the associate editor of Caner Innovation, the editorial board member of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letter, the Chinese Chemical Letters, the Chinese Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, and Acta Materia Medica.

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Alex Satz has 17+ years experience building DNA encoded library (DEL) platforms, and is currently the executive director of DEL strategy and operations at WuXi AppTec. Prior to WuXi AppTec, Alex led the Roche DEL platform in Basel Switzerland, and helped to develop the first industrial-scale DEL platform at Praecis Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline.

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Patrick obtained a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 2001 from the University of Pennsylvania. Following completion of his Ph.D., he began his career at Pharmacia in the Neuroscience chemistry group and following the 2003 acquisition of Pharmacia by Pfizer, he moved to the Groton site. As a scientist, project leader and manager in the Groton Neuroscience chemistry group, Patrick led multiple programs into clinical trials. In 2011 he became a design head in neuroscience medicinal chemistry driving project delivery in support of the neuroscience portfolio. In 2016, Patrick became the head of the Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry group and in 2017 the head of the Internal Medicine Medicinal chemistry group. Multiple programs from the neuroscience group were spun out to form Cerevel Therapeutics. In 2020, his responsibilities increased to include the discovery network group, CTI chemistry and the anti-viral medicinal chemistry efforts targeting protease inhibitors for COVID-19 leading to the discovery of Paxlovid. In 2023, he took over as the leader of the Medicine Design organization. Patrick is the author and inventor on over 75 publications and patents.

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Ruth Brenk is Professor at the University of Bergen (Norway) at the Department of Biomedicine. Her overall research goal is to improve methods used for structure-based drug design and to apply these methods to design of ligands for protein and RNA targets with biological relevance, mainly in the area of antibiotic drug discovery. A key point in her research is the interplay of theoretical and experimental methods. Ruth Brenk is a pharmacist by training. In 2003, she obtained her PhD from the University of Marburg (Germany) in the group of Prof. Gerhard Klebe. Afterwards, she joined the group of Prof. Brian Shoichet at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) as a postdoc. This research stay was funded by the Ernst Schering Foundation. In 2005, she became a Lecturer at the University of Dundee (UK). There, she headed the computational chemistry group of the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU). In addition, she also started her own research group in the area of structure-based drug design. In 2012, she became Junior professor at the Institute of Pharmacy at the Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) and in 2015 she was appointed as full professor at the University of Bergen. She is also co-heading the core facility for Biophysics, Structural Biology, and Screening (BiSS) which is part of EU-Openscreen. In 2013, she was awarded the Young Investigator Price of the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG).

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Joachim Broeker obtained his PhD at the Vienna University of Technology in the group of Peter Gaertner working on asymmetric syntheses. In 2004, he joined the Medicinal Chemistry Department of Boehringer Ingelheim in Vienna as a bench chemist. Joachim spent several months as a visiting scientist at the Boehringer Ingelheim virology research site in Laval, Canada in 2009 and gained experience in the field of PROTACS in the group of Alessio Ciulli at University of Dundee in 2019. He is a Principal Scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim since 2012 and has been working on a diverse set of oncology targets. Since several years he has been working on KRAS inhibitors and was involved in the identification of recently published tool compounds like the KRASG12C inhibitor BI-0474 as well as the pan KRAS inhibitors BI-2865 and BI-2493. Joachim has more than 10 years of experience leading medicinal chemistry projects in hit finding, H2L, and LO.

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Luc Brunsveld (1975) is professor of Chemical Biology in the Biomedical Engineering department and the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He obtained a PhD in 2001 with Prof. Bert Meijer from Eindhoven University of Technology. Subsequently, he was postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Herbert Waldmann at the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (MPI, Dortmund, Germany) and group leader in medicinal chemistry at Organon (Oss, the Netherlands, now Merck). In 2005, he started a research group at the MPI in Dortmund, working on the supramolecular chemistry of protein-protein interactions. Since 2008, he is at TU/e, where the research centers on the supramolecular chemical biology of protein-protein interactions. By melding synthetic and supramolecular chemistry with chemical biology, the aim is to achieve precise molecular control over biological systems. The group has cultivated expertise in organic synthesis, peptide and protein chemistry, chemical biology, and supramolecular chemistry, enabling them to craft new molecules and materials for the study, engineering, and modulation of protein-protein interactions. Their ambitions include realizing a synthetic cell and devising novel drugs by fine-tuning protein-protein interactions, ranking high on the group's wish list. Relevant grants include ERC Starting, Proof of Concept, and Advanced grants (2008, 2010, and 2023 respectively) and the NWO Vici grant (2015). He was awarded the NVBMB Award of the Dutch Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2010, the Gold Medal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society KNCV in 2013, and the Leadership in Excellence Award from the TU Eindhoven (2023). In 2022 Luc was elected as member of the KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences). Together with Christian Ottmann (TU/e) and Michelle Arkin (UCSF), he is co-founder of Ambagon Therapeutics.

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Lucy Colwell is a faculty member in chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Her primary interests are in the application of machine learning approaches to better understand the relationship between the sequence and function of biological macromolecules. Before moving to Cambridge Lucy received her PhD from Harvard University and held an EPSRC fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ and the MRC-LMB in Cambridge. In 2018 Lucy was appointed a Simons Investigator in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems. Over the last few years Lucy's team has worked closely with experts at EMBL-EBI to add millions of AI-generated protein functional annotations to public databases.

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Yu Ding, male, was born in April 1978. He is currently a Professor in School of Life Sciences, Fudan University. Dr. Ding attended the Science Base Class at the School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, from 1996 to 1999, obtaining a bachelor's degree. He pursued Biophysics at the School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, from 1999 to 2004, earning a Ph.D. degree. Dr. Ding was appointed as a lecturer in 2004, promoted to associate professor in 2007, and to professor in 2020. From February 2009 to September 2011, he participated in an exchange program at the Department of Chemistry, the University of Hong Kong. His research interest focused on Autophagy-Lysosome-Based Pathogenic Macromolecular Targeted Degradation Technology (ATTEC) and Nanobody Technology. Selected Publications: Allele-selective lowering of mutant HTT protein by HTT–LC3 linker compounds, Z Li, C Wang, Z Wang, C Zhu, J Li, T Sha, L Ma, C Gao…, Y Ding#, Y Fei#, B Lu#, Nature, 575(7781): 203, (2019) (Selected as one of Nature's Top 10 Outstanding Papers of 2019) Emerging degrader technologies engaging lysosomal pathways, Y Ding#, D Xing#, Y Fei#, B Lu#, Chemical Society Reviews, 51:8832, (2022) (Cover article) Degradation of lipid droplets by chimeric autophagy-tethering compounds, Y Fu, N Chen, Z Wang, S Luo, Y Ding#, B Lu#, Cell research, 31(9): 965, (2021) (Cover article, recipient of the Sanofi-Cell Research 2021 Outstanding Paper Award)

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Katharina L. Duerr, PhD is a Director, Head of Protein Biochemistry & Structural Biology at OMass Therapeutics Ltd. in Oxford, United Kingdom. Her area of research is Structural Biology in Small Molecule Drug Discovery. She worked as a postdoc at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland OR (USA) from 2010 to 2016. From 2016 to 2020, she is Group Leader for Structural Biology of Membrane Proteins at the Structural Genomics Consortium in Oxford (United Kingdom). Dr Dürr obtained her PhD summa cum laude (Biophysical Chemistry) from the Technical University of Berlin (Germany) in 2009. In 2003, she graduated with honours (Biochemistry) from the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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Dr Sebastian Essig studied chemistry and biology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany and obtained his PhD in organic chemistry in 2013. Subsequently, he joined the group of Prof. Jason Chin at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K., where he completed his postdoctoral training in chemical biology and synthetic biology. In 2016 he started at Bayer AG as a medicinal chemist where he was involved in different drug discovery programs. He is currently Director of Chemical Biology in Bayer’s Life Science Technology Department focusing on novel chemoproteomics methods, OMICs based target discovery and deconvolution strategies and the expansion of the covalent toolbox in close collaboration with Bayer’s Vividion platform.

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Gwenn M. Hansen, Ph.D. has served as Chief Scientific Officer of Nurix since June 2020 and served as the company’s Senior Vice President, Research from July 2019 through May 2020. Since joining Nurix in 2015, Gwenn has focused on establishing the company’s DNA encoded library technology platform for small molecule discovery in addition to leading the discovery organization. Prior to joining Nurix, Gwenn was an Associate Professor in the Center for Drug Discovery at Baylor College of Medicine and served in a variety of discovery-focused roles at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Hansen holds a B.A. in Biology from Gustavus Adolphus College and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

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Christian Heinis is engaged in the discovery and development of cyclic peptides for therapeutic application. His research group generates the cyclic peptides by synthesizing large libraries of random peptides using combinatorial approaches and by screening them for binding or modulating disease targets. An important goal is currently the development of cyclic peptides that are membrane permeable and/or orally available. Christian Heinis studied chemistry/biochemistry at the ETH Zurich. After his PhD in the research group of Prof. Dr. Dario Neri at ETH Zurich, he completed two postdocs, the first with Prof. Dr. Kai Johnsson at EPFL in Lausanne and the second with Sir Gregory Winter at LMB-MRC in Cambridge, UK. In 2008, he started as an assistant professor at EPFL (supported by an SNSF professorship) and was promoted to associate professor in 2015. Christian Heinis is co-founder of the companies Bicycle Therapeutics and Orbis Medicines.

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Magnus J Johansson is Senior Principal Scientist in Early Cardivoascular Renal and Metabolism areaCVMD Medicinal Chemistry department. A PhD focused on the preparation of chiral phosphines and asymmetric catalysis at CTH, followed by development of gold-catalyzed asymmetric cyclopropanations at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Prof Dean Toste (US). More recently also a sabbatical as research fellow at the department of Chemistry and Chemcal Biology, Harvard University. He has for several years been leading synthesis development within AZ globally and actively worked with several different academic collaborations, among those Stockholm University, Karolinska Institute and several prominent institutions in both Europe and abroad. He is part time professor in organic chemistry and catalysis at Stockholm University, actively supervise both post-docs as well as PhD students within AZ and at Stockholm University. A common theme has been catalysis with a focus on transition metal mediated reactions, especially C-H activation of complex substrates. But also photoredox catalysis, biocatalysis and more recently also AI/ML predictive modelling. Magnus is also member of the board in the VINNOVA/VR funded Berzelii center EXSELENT and SAFECHEM sponsored by MISTRA, in addition also member of the board in the Swedish Chemical Society, division for Organic Chemistry.

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Tim Jonckers is currently working as Scientific Director in the Global Discovery Chemistry team at Johnson & Johnson innovative Medicine in Beerse, Belgium. His research focusses on small molecule programs that aim to tackle the complex domains of oncology and infectious diseases. Tim earned a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Antwerp in 2003 working on novel synthetic methodologies towards antimalarials.

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Jun-Seok Lee received his Ph.D. in 2009 from New York University, working on a diversity-oriented BODIPY library for bioimaging probe development. After his doctoral studies, he joined KIST, where he served as a principal research scientist. Currently, he is an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Korea University College of Medicine, where his research focuses on chemical proteomics and host–pathogen interaction studies.

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Docent Helena Lundberg works as Assistant Professor in organic chemistry at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Her research group targets the development new methods for organic synthesis by means of catalysis and electrochemistry, with a particular focus on activation of C-X bonds such as C-O, C-S and C-F. Helena received her PhD from Stockholm University under the supervision of Professor Hans Adolfson, working on catalytic amide formation. After postdoctoral research on mechanistic studies using DFT calculations at the same institution with Professor Fahmi Himo, Helena joined Professor Donna Blackmond’s group at Scripps Research where she carried out mechanistic studies of radical transformations in close collaboration with the team of Professor Phil Baran. Among recent distinctions, Helena was appointed “Research Leader of the Future” by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) in 2022 and was one of the speakers in the Thieme WebCheminar “Rising Stars in Organic Synthesis” in 2023.

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Dr. Alessandra Magistrato is research director at of Italian National Research Council (CNR-IOM) c/o International School for Advanced studies, Trieste Italy, where she leads the group computational biology. Since 2024 she is President of the Italian Chemical Biology Society and Senior Editor of the ACS Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. Dr. Magistrato obtained her PhD in computational Chemistry at ETH Zentrum, Zuerich, Switerland, and she was postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. The Magistrato Lab research activity is devoted to the development and application of state-of-the-art computational methods for multi-scale molecular simulations. We aim to investigate the structure, function, and dynamics of complex biological systems and to the development of small-molecule inhibitor to modulate their function. Our research activity ranges from the study of pharmacologically relevant enzymes, to that of protein/RNA machineries, metal ions transporters and cytolytic toxins. Our research lies at the interface of chemistry, biology and medicinal chemistry and involves collaborations with various experimental labs.

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Dr. Lisa Marcaurelle is an Executive Director and Senior Fellow at GSK where she is the Head of the Encoded Technologies platform within Molecular Modalities Discovery. Lisa obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2001 from the University of California, Berkeley working with Professor Carolyn Bertozzi and did post-doctoral research at MIT with Professor Peter Seeberger (2001-2002). She began her industry career at Infinity Pharmaceuticals in 2002 before joining the Broad Institute in 2007 as a Director in the Chemical Biology platform. In 2011 she returned to biotech as one of the founding members of H3 Biomedicine as VP of Discovery Chemistry. In 2015 she joined Warp Drive Bio focusing on the discovery of molecular glues, leading a DEL collaboration with GSK which ultimately led to her transition to GSK in 2018. Lisa is an active member of the American Chemical Society and was named an ACS Fellow in 2021. She has served as Chair of the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry and is a member of the ACS Women Chemists Committee.

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Dr. María Méndez Pérez is a distinguished scientist working at Sanofi's Small Molecular Design department in Frankfurt, Germany, where she oversees the medicinal chemistry team. Her team currently supports programs within the immunology and neurology disease areas, with a strong focus on implementing novel technologies and workflows to expedite the DMTA cycle. Additionally, in her role as global portfolio coordinator, she manages the Integrated Drug Discovery portfolio spaning multiple disease areas and target classes. After earning her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid in 2001, Maria went on to complete postdoctoral research in catalysis with Prof. Fürstner at the Max Planck Institute in Mülheim an der Ruhr and in theoretical chemistry with Prof. van Wüllen at the Technical University in Berlin. She has been a part of the Sanofi team since 2006, working with several target classes, modalities, and disease areas in all discovery phases. As team leader or co-leader, she has played a significant role in the delivery of clinical candidates in the areas of diabetes and neuroscience.

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Anne Moore is professor at the School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the University of Cork's National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) in Ireland. Her area of research is vaccine development and deployment. Her research focuses on the development and application of innovative vaccines to meet the needs of equitable access and acceptability. Her expertise ranges from basic immunology and vaccine formulation to clinical translation and vaccine acceptance research. As a post-doctoral fellow, she studied immune response defects in HIV-infected individuals at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and continued her work on recombinant HIV and Ebola vaccines in the laboratory of Dr Gary Nabel, then at the University of Michigan. As a senior immunologist in Professor Adrian Hill's group at Oxford University, she developed several T-cell inducing vaccine candidates against malaria, tuberculosis and influenza. In 2007, she joined the School of Pharmacy at University College Cork to teach pharmacology. She became a Professor in the School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at UCC and a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) in Ireland in 2024. Here, her academic and commercial research portfolio and interdisciplinary collaborative team focus on heat-stabilised vaccines in solid dosage forms for skin and mucosal administration.

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Seung Bum Park is a Professor of the Chemistry Department and Director of the CRI Center for Chemical Proteomics at Seoul National University. He received his BS (1993) and MS (1997) in Chemistry from Yonsei University, Korea, and his Ph.D. (2001) in Bioorganic Chemistry from Texas A&M University. After three years of post-doctoral training at Harvard University under the guidance of Prof. Stuart L. Schreiber, he was appointed as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Chemistry Department at Seoul National University (2004) and promoted to the tenured Associate Professor (2008) and full Professor (2013). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was a visiting Professor at the Scripps Research Institute with Prof. Peter G. Schultz in 2009. His research interests are in the fields of chemical biology including molecular diversity, fluorescent bioprobe, phenotypic screening, and target identification for drug discovery targeting protein-protein interaction. Seung Bum serves as a grant committee and scientific advisory board member for various journals and research organizations. He published more than 180 papers, 40 patents, and 6 books. He won numerous awards and founded bio-venture SPARK Biopharma, Inc. (2016) for the phenotypic discovery of first-in-class therapeutics. His team at SPARK Biopharma focuses on small-molecule-based immune-modulating agents for cancer, fibrosis, and neurodegeneration.

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Andy Pike is a DMPK scientist with over 30 years of experience in drug discovery within the pharmaceutical industry and is currently a DMPK project lead within AstraZeneca Oncology R&D having previously worked for MSD, Astex and Pfizer. Andy has worked across a range of therapeutic areas, target classes and drug modalities and in recent years has begun working with heterobifunctional degraders, applying his experience to understanding the specific ADME challenges they present compared to traditional small molecule drugs.

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Thomas Prisinzano is Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Research and Innovation at the University of Kentucky. He received his BS (1995) in Chemistry from the University of Delaware, and his Ph.D. (2000) in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University. After three years as an Intramural Training Award (IRTA) Fellow in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases under the guidance of Kenner C. Rice, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor (2003) in the Division of Medicinal & Natural Products Chemistry at the University of Iowa. From 2007-2019, he was a faculty member in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Kansas. In 2019, he joined the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. His research is directed toward elucidation of the structure and function of neurotransmitter systems in the central nervous system in normal, drug-altered, and pathological states and the development of medications for the treatment of drug abuse and pain. Dr. Prisinzano’s research is characterized by rigorous attention to the influence of chemical structure on biological activity. He has published more than 160 papers and 10 patents and has received several awards including the David W. Robertson Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry from the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (2012).

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Gergely Tóth (PhD, MBA) is the CEO, CSO and founder of Cantabio Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on developing novel disease modifying precision therapeutics and diagnostics for neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Tóth is also an Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Pharmacy at University College London. Dr. Tóth received his PhD from the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Creighton University in 2001 and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Tóth also received an Executive MBA from the University of Cambridge in 2012. Dr. Tóth previously held various research roles in small and global biopharmaceutical companies in the U.S. between 2001-2010 and was a Welcome Trust research fellow at the University of Cambridge between 2010-2015. Dr. Tóth has over 20 years of experience in the research of therapeutics and diagnostics for Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. One of his main research interests is the elucidation of structural biology and biophysics of targeting of intrinsically disorder proteins with small molecules for alleviating protein misfolding. Moreover, he has a keen interest in developing precision therapy approaches for the DJ-1, a protein genetically linked to familial Parkinson’s disease and involved in controlling cellular redox and protein homeostasis.

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Soren Ostergaard joined Novo Nordisk in 1997 and is working as a principal scientist, tech coordinator and talent ambassador. He took his PhD in peptide and protein chemistry form the University of Copenhagen in 1996 focusing on combinatorial peptide libraries and design of peptide ligands for various receptors. At Novo Nordisk he has been working on developing the fatty acid technology by combinatorial chemistry for half-life extension and applied this to different peptide hormones within the metabolic diseases. He has mainly worked with challenges concerning potency/selectivity and the half-life of e.g., endogenous peptides and de novo design of dual/triple acting peptides for subcutaneous or oral dosing. In addition, he has also been involved in immunogenicity of peptides and proteins employing B- and T- cell epitope mapping technologies. For two decades he has been working with different peptide arrays technologies to design potent peptide therapeutics. He is also engaged in academic collaborations and is also teaching at the Copenhagen and Aarhus Universities. He is the author of +90 papers, patents and application.

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