BMCS Hot Topics: AI in Drug Discovery
Event
BMCS Hot Topics: AI in Drug Discovery
Dates
Tuesday 3rd November 2026 (afternoon) 13:00 – 17:00 UK Time
Place
Online event, Zoom
Important links and downloads
Social Media – #HotTopicsAI
Please click here to register
Please click here to download the first announcement
Synopsis
The BMCS Hot Topics online meetings are intended to highlight breaking areas of research in fields of science relevant to drug discovery. They will run as stand-alone half-day virtual events, 2-3 times per year. The programme will be targeted towards researchers who would like to enhance their understanding of these nascent or developing fields.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important part of the drug discovery toolkit, with applications spanning target discovery, molecular design, protein modelling, and clinical development. As the field advances, AI is not only offering new technical capabilities but also changing how researchers approach the challenges of drug discovery. This meeting will highlight recent progress in AI-driven drug discovery, bringing together perspectives from industry and academia. Talks will explore enabling technologies and practical applications of AI across the drug discovery pipeline.
Registration
Please click here to register.
RSC Member: £55
Non-Member: £75
RSC Student Member: £40
Student Non-Member: £50
Please note that registrations are for one person per booking.
If you wish to register multiple people from the same organisation, we can offer a sizeable discount. If you are interested, please contact aimee.jackson@hg3.co.uk.
Want to become a member?
To join the RSC in order to qualify for discounted registration fees at all RSC, please follow this RSC link.
Programme
| Chair: Hannah Fowler, RSC | |
|---|---|
| 12:30 | Opening Remarks |
| 12:35 | Andreas Bender, Khalifa University Automating Drug Discovery, Self-Driving Labs et al. - Can it work? Aspects of Data, Hypothesis Spaces, and Decision Making |
| 13:20 | Keishi Kohara, AstraZeneca Embedding AI-Assisted Design at AstraZeneca |
| 13:50 - 14:05 | Break |
| Chair: Silvia Bonomo, Astex | |
| 14:05 | Astrid Stroobants, Novartis Title TBC |
| 14:35 | Fraser Cunningham, Recursion Title TBC |
| 15:05 | Kenneth Atz, Roche RingAnalyzer reveals widespread high-energy ring conformations across structure-based drug design workflows |
| 15:35 - 15:50 | Break |
| Chair: Chris Swain, Cambridge MedChem Consulting | |
| 15:50 | Alex Rich, Inductive Bio Dose-Driven Lead Optimization in the AI Era |
| 16:20 | Maria Castellanos, OpenADMET, Open Molecular Software Foundation (OMSF) Democratizing AI for ADMET: Open Data, Community Models, and Live Benchmarks |
| 16:50 | Closing Remarks |
| 17:00 | Close of Conference |
Sponsorship
The organising committee are seeking sponsorship from organisations supporting the low registration fees offered to students. Please click here if you wish to sponsor the meeting.
All sponsors will receive the following:
– Logo and URL on the meeting website
– Logo on the holding slides shown during the breaks at the meeting
– Logo included in the delegate handbook
– One static slide to be included in the holding slides
Sponsors
Organising Committee
Adrian Hall, UCB
Daniel O Donovan, AstraZeneca
Chris Swain, Cambridge MedChem Consulting
Hannah Fowler, RSC
Marta Brambilla, Johnson & Johnson
Keishi Kohara, AstraZeneca
Secretariat Contact
Hg3 Conferences Ltd
+44 (0)1423 529333
E-mail
