June 23, 2009

eCheminfo Virtual Community Activities in Cheminformatics

When I started the eCheminfo community of practice in late 2003 we focused initially on using the approach of virtual conferencing and communications to get the community started.  More recently I have given more attention to developing face-to-face conference and workshop activity and initiating collaborative research. While on this journey it has been personally rewarding to have met and made contact with hundreds of scientists in the international community and to additionally be involved in supporting their networking, career development and research in drug design, discovery and modelling. It has also been rewarding to have just met so many great people and to have had the chance to interact with them, be it on a computer, in a workshop exercise, or on a punt trying to get down the river as we usually do when we are in Oxford.  So far we seem to be better on computer-based physics than boat physics!

And so I have come full circle and can see the need to prioritise the virtual community aspects of eCheminfo further again, to support the continuation of all these worthwhile interactions in the community.  So LinkedIn is one place to start.  I have been on there for some years and we have had a group area, but have not really done much with it.  It has primarily been useful for some introductions between people.  However recent feature additions for discussion, posting of news, job announcements etc. have been added, so it seems worthwhile to try using it more for supporting continuing interactions in the community.  So I am initiating today invitations to the eCheminfo community to join us there for discussion, news and networking on what is happening in the world of drug discovery informatics, cheminformatics, bioinformatics, etc.  Use of the group is intended for scientific and professional exchange purposes only.  As included in our mission we encourage cross-disciplinary cross-sector participation so from medicinal chemists in the pharmaceutical industry through toxicologists in government institutes through PhD students working on their modelling research problems are welcome!

To request joining the eCheminfo LinkedIn group please follow the following link and introduce yourself with a group joining request:

https://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1173/77EB680070FF/

I also really welcome suggestions from the community there on what you would like to see as further developments in coming years!

Barry

March 07, 2009

eCheminfo 2009 Drug Discovery meeting at Bryn Mawr - call for contributions

We will hold our fifth annual eCheminfo community of practice meeting on drug discovery informatics at Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia 13 -16 October 2009.

We invite contributed papers from members of academic, government research and commercial organizations on areas of new research and innovation involving drug discovery research informatics. The work presented should involve innovative new method development or application to drug discovery problems and involving methods from computational chemistry, computational biology, cheminformatics or bioinformatics. Studies including experimental work in medicinal chemistry, screening, in vitro assay development, pre-clinical evaluation, lead optimisation and translational medicine are welcome.

Abstracts for talks (300-500 words) should be submitted to echeminfo -[at]- douglasconnect.com by 31 March 2009, and be accompanied by a short biography of the presenting author (300-500 words). Abstracts approved by the scientific organizing committee will be selected for scheduling on the conference program. Authors will be notified of acceptance as soon as a review of submitted materials takes place and at the latest by 15 April 2009. Abstracts for posters will continue be accepted for review through 31 August 2009.

The following sessions are currently planned:

Pre-conference Workshop on Drug Binding Affinities
chaired by Scott Brown (Abbott Laboratories) and Judith Lalonde (Bryn Mawr College)

Structure-Based Drug Design: The Roles of Conformation, Water and Hydrogen Bonds
chaired by Alan Cheng (Amgen)

Macromolecular Interactions and Networks
chaired by Emil Alexov (Clemson University)

Structure-Based Drug Design: Advanced Scoring Methods
chaired by Natasja Brooijmans (Wyeth)

Data Analysis and Visualisation Applications in Chemical Biology
chaired by Brian Marsden (Structural Genomics Consortium Oxford)

PDB Ligands
chaired by John Westbrook (Rutgers University)

Predictive Toxicology
chaired by Vladimir Poirikov (Russian Academy of Medical Sciences) and Richard Judson (US EPA)

October 06, 2008

Schedule for InnovationWell and eCheminfo Autumn 2008 Community of Practice Meeting

I provide below a schedule for the upcoming InnovationWell and eCheminfo Community of Practice meetings at Bryn Mawr.

I also include a location map here which may be useful upon arrival:

Download bryn_mawr_campus_map_douglas_connect_meeting.pdf

[Please follow continuation here to view schedule.]

Continue reading "Schedule for InnovationWell and eCheminfo Autumn 2008 Community of Practice Meeting " »

August 26, 2008

Accurate Calculation of pKas

The assignment of protonation state and accurate calculation of local pKa in macromolecular structures can be an important factor in understanding and simulating biological systems. The assignment of protonation states is a difficult computational problem because of uncertainties related to conformation, solvent salts and other interactions.


On 15 October 2008 we will hold an eCheminfo Community of Practice conference session at Bryn Mawr College to be chaired by Paul Labute (President, Chemical Computing Group), to present recent methods related to macromolecular pKa prediction as well as techniques and issues related to methods validation.

A description of the session with presentation abstracts follows:

Accurate Calculation of pKas

http://echeminfo.com/COMTY_confprog08pkas

(Please follow continuation here to read abstracts.  Comments can be made at the end.)

Continue reading "Accurate Calculation of pKas" »

June 13, 2008

Advances in Drug Discovery Informatics

The eCheminfo Autumn Community of Practice Meeting will take place 14-17 October 2008 at Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia, USA to discuss the latest advances in drug discovery informatics including the following topics:

Cheminformatics, Bioinformatics, Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery Innovation, Structure-based Drug Design, Screening, Docking, Structural Biology, Predictive Toxicology, Predictive ADME, Chemogenomics

Program Summary
Docking & Scoring, chaired by Chaya Duraiswami (GlaxoSmithKline)
Application of MM-PBSA Free Energy Methods in Drug Discovery, chaired by Judith Lalonde (Bryn Mawr College)
Accurate Calculation of pKas, chaired by Paul Labute (Chemical Computing Group)
In Silico-based Chemogenomics, chaired by Fabrice Moriaud (MEDIT)
PDB Ligands: Analysing their Structure & Binding Data, chaired by Marc Nicklaus (National Institutes of Health)
Predictive ADME, chaired by Anthony E. Klon (Pharmacopeia Drug Discovery)
Predictive Toxicology, chaired by Artem Cherkasov (University of British Columbia)

Pre-Conference Workshop, 13 October 2008
Best Practices Virtual Screening Workshop chaired by Barry Hardy (Douglas Connect)

Speakers
John Irwin (UCSF), Georgia McGaughey (Merck), Johannes H. Voigt (Schering Plough), Lance Westerhoff (Quantum Bio), Zsolt Zsoldos (SimBioSys), Alexey Ornufriev  (Virginia Tech), David Case (Rutgers University), Rommie Amaro (USCD), Peter Coveney (Univ. College London), Anna Kohlmann (Ariad Pharmaceuticals), Scott Brown (Abbott), Emil Alexov (Clemson University), Jens Erik Nielsen (University College Dublin, Ireland), Darren Flower (Jenner Institute, UK), Maja Mihajlovic (City College of New York), Michael Keiser (UCSF), Brian Marsden (University of Oxford, UK), Alex Tropsha (UNC), John Westbrook (Rutgers), Howard J Feldman (CCG), Igor V. Filippov (NCI), Raul Cachau (ATP, SAIC-Frederick), Vincent T. Moy (University of Miami), Paul Hawkins (OpenEye), Yulia Borodina (NCBI), Gerhard Wolber (Inte:Ligand, Austria), Marc Nicklaus (NCI), James P. Snyder (Emory), Anne Chaka (NIST), Esther Kellenberger (Univ. Strasbourg, France), Renxiao Wang (SIOC, Shanghai, PR China), Jim Dunbar (University of Michigan), Janna Wehrle (NIGMS), Anton Hopfinger (University of New Mexico), Heidi Einolf (Novartis), Yojiro Sakiyama (Pfizer), Olga Obrezanova (BioFocus DPI, UK), Anthony E. Klon (Pharmacopeia), Artem Cherkasov (University of British Columbia, Canada), Ann Richards (US EPA), Curt Breneman (RPI), Barry Hardy (Douglas Connect), Weida Tong (FDA)

CFP
We invite contributed papers from members of academic, government research and commercial organizations on areas of new research and innovation involving drug discovery research informatics. The work presented should involve innovative new method development or application to drug discovery problems and involving methods from computational chemistry, computational biology, cheminformatics or bioinformatics. Studies including experimental work in medicinal chemistry, screening, experimental toxicology, pre-clinical evaluation, lead optimisation and translational medicine are welcome.

Abstracts (300-500 words) should be submitted to echeminfo -[at]- douglasconnect.com by 31 July 2008, and be accompanied by a short biography of the presenting author (300-500 words). Abstracts approved by the scientific organizing committee will be selected for scheduling on the conference program and in meeting poster sessions. Authors will be notified of acceptance as soon as a review of submitted materials takes place and at the latest by 15 August 2008.

Bursary
Bursary Awards will be used to support the attendance of a selection of academic young investigators at the meeting and workshops. Applicants can be working in any area of research related to drug discovery at the postdoctoral, graduate student and senior undergraduate levels.

To apply for the bursary please send an email with a) your abstract and biography (300-500 words each), b) your CV of 1-2 pages, c) a short description of your interests and career motivations related to drug discovery (300-500 words) to echeminfo -[at]- douglasconnect.com by 31 July 2008. The recipients of the bursary awards will be selected based on an evaluation of the quality and innovation of the described research and the potential positive impact of attendance at the meeting on their research and career progress. Authors will be notified of acceptance by 15 August 2008.

Poster Session
All InterAction Meeting registrants are eligible to present a Conference Poster. The Poster Sessions will take place in the evenings in Thomas Great Hall on campus, where refreshments and dinner are also served. Poster Abstracts (300-500 words) with Title, Institution, Authors and Contact Information should be submitted to barry.hardy -[at]-
douglasconnect.com  Abstracts will be considered based on date of submission and quality, and will be reviewed and accepted as they are received. To be considered for the formal program, they should be submitted at the very latest by 31 August 2008.

Download Program Brochure (pdf):

Download eChemProgramBrynMawr08-Final-v3.pdf

Contact:
Program: Dr. Barry Hardy, eCheminfo Community of Practice, Douglas Connect. Tel: +41 61 851 0170. barry.hardy -[at]- douglasconnect.com

Registration Enquiries: Nicki Douglas, Douglas Connect, Baermeggenweg 14, 4314 Zeiningen, Switzerland. Tel: +41 61 851 0461. echeminfo -[at]- douglasconnect.com or go to:

http://echeminfoBM810.eventsbot.com

June 19, 2007

Brochure for Autumn 2007 eCheminfo Cheminformatics Conference Available

The brochure for the eCheminfo Cheminformatics Conference is now available:

Latest Advances in Drug Discovery & Development
15-19 October 2007
Community of Practice Meeting, Autumn 2007
a joint InnovationWell and eCheminfo InterAction Meeting
Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia
http://www.echeminfo.com/COMTY_conferences

Download the brochure as a pdf here:

Download eChemProgramBrynMawr07-web1.PDF

Look forward to seeing you there  - you will not find drug discovery informatics discussions to match these anywhere else in the world this year :)!!

Barry

January 26, 2007

Bursary Award for Drug Discovery Training Week in Oxford

The 5 Day eCheminfo Advanced Drug Discovery Training Week will take place 25-29 June 2007 at the Chemistry Research Laboratory, Oxford University, Oxford, UK. Topics to be covered include Virtual Screening & Docking, Structure-based Drug Design, Library Design, Latest advances in ADME & Predictive Toxicology, Data Mining, Analysis & Visualisation, Pharmacophores, Pharmacokinetics & Pharmacodynamics, Physiological-based Simulation and Integration of Cheminformatics & Bioinformatics Tools & Data.

These workshops are aimed to provide a set of stimulating workshops using latest advanced modelling techniques of relevance to chemists, life scientists and modellers working in drug discovery. The workshop group studies problems with hands-on examples using leading-edge software and discusses complex issues highlighted by examples and case studies presented by instructors. A variety of leading software packages and an IT classroom are used by instructors and participants to work through challenging problems.

A Bursary Award sponsored by Chemical Computing Group (CCG) will be used to support the attendance of one academic participant, who may be working in any area of chemistry related to drug discovery. To apply for the bursary please send an email with a) description of your research; your training needs (ca. 500 words each), b) your CV to echeminfo [at] douglasconnect.com by 28 February. The recipient of the award will be selected based on an evaluation of the quality and innovation of the described research and the potential positive impact of the training on their research progress and will be notified by 15 March. We gratefully acknowledge the sponsorship support of CCG.

Download Program Brochure (pdf):

Download eChemProgramOxford07-v3web.PDF

More Information is available at http://www.echeminfo.com/COMTY_training

Barry Hardy

eCheminfo Community of Practice Manager

October 26, 2006

eCheminfo Membership & Workshop Activity for 2007

During November I will be planning the 2007 programs for the eCheminfo Advanced Training Week in Oxford and the InterAction Meeting in Bryn Mawr.  Please contact me with your interests and proposals!

Latest Advances in Drug Discovery Design & Planning Methods
a Hands-on 5 Day eCheminfo Advanced Training Workshop Week
June 25-29, Chemical Research Laboratory, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

Latest Advances in Drug Discovery & Development
eCheminfo Community of Practice InterAction Meeting
15-18 October 2007, Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Themes: Screening, Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Design, Toxicology, Structural Biology, Bioinformatics, Cheminformatics

eCheminfo Gold membership
This entitles members to access eCheminfo meeting proceedings including audio, access to our Executive Insights reports from meeting and community of practice activities, and additional member discounts on meeting and training registration fees. 

Download eCheminfo2007MembershipForm.pdf

Barry Hardy

September 05, 2006

Latest Advances in Drug Discovery & Development - Program & Agenda

The final program and agenda for our 4 Day joint InnovationWell and eCheminfo Community of Practice Meeting on the themes of Innovation in Life Science & Healthcare Research & Product Development and Latest Advances in Drug Discovery & Development is now available and provided below.  The meetings will take place at Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA, 16-19 October 2006. Program brochures may also be downloaded here:

InnovationWell Program Brochure on Innovation in Life Science & Healthcare Research & Product Development (Autumn 2006):

Download innwprogrambrynmawr06final_web3.pdf

eCheminfo Program Brochure on Latest Advances in Drug Discovery & Development (Autumn 2006):

Download eChemProgramBrynMawr06-web1a4.PDF

Updates & Abstracts will be located at: http://www.innovationwell.net/COMTY_conferenceprogram/
and http://www.echeminfo.com/COMTY_conferenceprogram/

PROGRAM AND AGENDA

Monday 16 October

07.30 Registration & Welcome Coffee Opens, Thomas Great Hall

InnovationWell InterAction Meeting Session, 09.00 – 13.00
Utilising Knowledge Management to increase R&D Productivity along Critical Paths
Chair: Michael Liebman (Windber Research Institute)

Delia Y. Wolf (Harvard Medical School), What a Quality Assurance Program can do to Facilitate Clinical Research and Development Process
Peter Gates (Johnson & Johnson PR&D), A Framework for Research Informatics
Jonathan Sheldon (InforSense), Building an Informatics Infrastructure for Translational Research
Duane Shugars (Concentia Digital), Why the “Top-Down Approach” to Knowledge and Content Management has failed the United Sates Intelligence Community – Implications for Healthcare Research
Jian Wang (Biofortis), Knowledge Management for Translational Research
Jeff Spitzner (Rescentris), Applying Knowledge Assessment Techniques to improving Productivity in Life Science Research

eCheminfo InterAction Meeting Session, 08.30 – 13.00
Structure-based Drug Design
Chair: Frank Hollinger (Locus Pharmaceuticals)

Erin Duffy (Rib-X), Structure-Based Drug Design Targeting Infectious Disease
Mike Malamas (Wyeth), Structure-Based Design of Estrogen Receptor-beta Selective Compounds
Frank Hollinger (Locus Pharmaceuticals), Harnessing the power of Structure Based Drug Design using a Fragment Based Approach
Debananda Das (National Cancer Institute), Structural Interactions of CCR5 with HIV-1 entry inhibitors
Max Cummings (Johnson & Johnson PR&D), Small Molecule Inhibitors of Protein-Protein Interactions
Jose Duca (Schering-Plough), Using ab initio calculations as routine tools to help design CDK2 inhibitors
Paul Labute (Chemical Computing Group), High Strain Energies of Bound Ligands

13.00 Lunch

InnovationWell Workshop Activity, 14.00-17.30
14.00-15.30
Carrying out an Onsite Audit and Self-assessment in Clinical Trial Management
Delia Y. Wolf (Harvard Medical School)

16.00-17.30
Knowledge Assessment in R&D – Impact on Project Management & Research Productivity
Barry Hardy (Douglas Connect) & Jeff Spitzner (Rescentris)

eCheminfo Workshop Activity, 14.00 – 18.00
14.00-15.30
Quantum Biochemistry Workflows, Lance Westerhoff (QuantumBio)

Fragment- and Structure-Based Drug Design, Zenon Konteatis and Jennifer L. Ludington (Locus Pharmaceuticals)

16.00-18.00
Advanced Techniques in Pharmacophore Perception and Successful Applications in Drug Design, Osman F. Güner (Turquoise Consulting)

Advances in Virtual Screening and Structure-based Drug Design
Hege Beard and Shashi Rao (Schrodinger)

Hypothesis generation from docking results using activity measurements, interaction fingerprints, clustering and 2D visualization methods
Alex Clark (Chemical Computing Group)

18.00 Drinks & BBQ

Tuesday 17 October

InnovationWell InterAction Meeting Session, 09.00 – 13.00
Decision Support for Research & Development

Peter Henstock (Pfizer), The Role of Systems Biology and Knowledge Management in Advancing Toxicology Knowledge in Big Pharma
Craig Liddell (Realtime Science), Advanced Technology in Support of Analytics in the Life Sciences
David Mosenkis (Spotfire), Case Studies in Using Interactive Visual Analytics to Accelerate Drug Development
Joel Hoffman (Insightful), Management Reporting of Clinical Trial Programs, Portfolios, and Studies: Managing Risks / Managing Projects
Dennis Underwood (Praxeon), Searching for Answers in Drug Development: The Game of Twenty Questions

eCheminfo InterAction Meeting Session, 09.00 – 13.00
Screening
Stan Young (National Institute of Statistical Sciences), Analysis of HTS data using Recursive Partitioning
John Irwin (UCSF), Investigating bias in Docking Screens with Target, Ligand and Decoy Benchmarking Sets
Deepak Bandyopadhyay (Johnson & Johnson PR&D), A new Self-organizing Algorithm for Molecular Alignment and Pharmacophore Development
Daryll Reid (SimBioSys), Virtual Ligand Screening with eHiTS
Neysa Nevins (GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals), A Critical Assessment of Docking Programs and Scoring Functions
William Douglas Figg (National Cancer Institute), Development of Angiogenesis Inhibitors - from Screening to the Clinic

InnovationWell Workshop Activity, 14.00-17.30
14.00 – 15.30
Electronic Laboratory Notebook Workshops

16.00 – 17.30
Applying Roadmap processes to the Clinical Trials Project Process, Joel Hoffman (Insightful)

Innovation Management in R&D – an Enterprizer Briefing and Case Study, Joseph Bitran (Enterprizer)

Using Interactive Visual Analytics to Accelerate Drug Development, David Mosenkis (Spotfire)

16.00-21.00 Open Event on Knowledge Management in R&D & ELNs

16.00 Electronic Laboratory Notebook Demonstrations

17.30 Open Seminars & Panel Discussion

19.30 Knowledge Café on Knowledge Management in R&D

20.30 Reception

eCheminfo Workshop Activity, 14.00-17.30
14.00 – 15.30
Applications of Filtering and Similarity in Virtual Screening
Paul Hawkins (OpenEye)

Docking and Screening
Darryl Reid (SimBioSys)

16.00 – 17.30
Roundtable Discussion on Virtual Screening & Docking Study
This session will discuss current virtual screening and docking methods and software, results of existing validation and comparison studies, and procedures for community of practice studies to be undertaken.


Wednesday 18 October

InnovationWell InterAction Meeting Session, 08.30 – 16.00
Application of Metabolomics to Drug Discovery & Development
Chair: George G. Harrigan (Monsanto)

George Harrigan (Monsanto), An Overview of Developments in Metabolomics Approaches
Rick Beger (NCTR, FDA), FDA's Critical Path Initiative: Opportunities for Metabolomics
Alvin Berger (Metabolon), Application of Metabolomics to Biomarker and Off-Target Side Effect Identification in Marketed Drugs and New Chemical Entities
Don Robertson (Pfizer), Uses and Abuses of Metabonomics in Pharmaceutical Preclinical Safety Assessment
Gregory Banik (Bio-RAD), Toward Diagnosis of Diabetes by NMR-based Metabolomics
Teresa Garret (Duke University), Identification of novel, minor lipids in total lipid extracts of Eschericia coli using Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry
Nick Haan (BlueGnome), Analysis of Metabolic Profiling Data - Combining the Strengths of NMR and MS
Susan Connor (Glaxo SmithKline), A Pharma Perspective on Metabolomics - the Opportunities and Realities
Laszlo Boros (SIDMAP), Tracer Substrate-based Metabolomics and the 2005 Nobel Prize award in Physiology & Medicine
Bruce Kristal (Cornell University), Serum Markers of Caloric Restriction
Oliver Fiehn (UC Davis Genome Center), Standards in Reporting Initiative
Eric Nemec (Leco Corporation), Studies of Drug-Induced Liver Injury using Comprehensive 2D Gas Chromatography with Time-of-Flight Detection

eCheminfo InterAction Meeting Session, 09.00 – 13.00
Bench Scientists’ & Modellers’ Discussions on Discovery Tools & Modeling
In this session a panel of experimental and computational chemists will discuss their experiences in using computational modeling methods in drug discovery. They will discuss where the methods and software are having success, and where current methods are not yet meeting their needs, are failing or have challenges or complications.  Short presentations on drug discovery experiences will be used to seed discussion of cheminformatics-driven medicinal chemistry and lead optimization and conversations on where new developments could aid improvement in practice and tools.

Panel: Chris Cooper (BMS), James Arnold (AstraZeneca), Phil Edwards (AstraZeneca), Pete Connolly (Johnson & Johnson PRD), Victor Lobanov (Johnson & Johnson PRD), Jim Wikel (Coalesix)

InnovationWell Workshop Activity, 16.30-18.00
NMR-based Positional Isotopomer Analysis in Metabolomics
Andrew N. Lane (JG Brown Cancer Center, U. Louisville)

Linking Metabolic Profiles to Biological Outcome
S. Stanley Young (National Institute of Statistical Sciences)

Understanding Metabolomics  Mixtures with Principal Components Analysis
Gregory Banik (Bio-RAD)

eCheminfo Workshop Activity, 14.00-17.30
14.00 – 15.30
in silico Technology in Drug Discovery and Development
Michael B. Bolger (Simulations Plus and USC School of Pharmacy)

Using Physicochemical Property Predictions to Overcome ADME Concerns at Lead Optimization
Sanji Bhal and Karim Kassam (ACD/Labs)

16.00 – 17.30
Machine Intelligence in the Design of New Biologically Active Chemicals
Gilles Klopman (Multicase)

Challenges of ADME/Tox Prediction
Bob Clark (Tripos)

18.00 Poster Session, Drinks and BBQ


Thursday 19 October

InnovationWell InterAction Meeting Session, 09.00 – 13.00
Biomarker Discovery & Applications in Drug Development

Keith Elliston (Genstruct), Harnessing the Power of Systems Biology – Delivering Mechanism-of-Action and Biomarkers in Drug Development
Zentam Tsuchihashi (Bristol-MyersSquibb), Many Layers of Biomarker Roles in Tumor Immunotherapy
Darius Dziuda (Central Connecticut State University), Multivariate Biomarkers Discovery
Michael Jones (Novartis), Application of Proteomics to Biomarker Discovery
Bernd Bonnekoh, (Otto-von-Guericke-University), Perspectives for Multi Epitope Ligand Kartography (MELK) for Detection of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Biomarkers in Skin Diseases, Allergology and Beyond

eCheminfo InterAction Meeting Session, 09.00 – 16.00
Predictive Toxicology
Chair: Curt Breneman (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

KEYNOTE: Tudor Oprea (Univ. New Mexico), The Physical basis for the Rule of Five
Navita Mallalieu (Roche Pharmaceuticals), A Roadmap for Integrating Modelling & Simulation in Pre-Clinical DMPK Research
Alex Tropsha (UNC), The Statistical Significance vs. Mechanistic Interpretation of ADME/tox models
Curt Breneman (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Predictive ADME : How Do I Know if my Predictions will be Useful?
Sanji Bhal & Karim Kassam (ACD/Labs), An in silico Approach to Reduce the Burdens of Lead Discovery and Optimization
Michael B. Bolger (Simulations Plus and USC School of Pharmacy), Integration of Early ADME using Property Estimation and PBPK Simulation
Bob Clark (Tripos), The "Structures" in Structure-Activity Relationships
Gilles Klopman (Multicase), Machine Intelligence in the Design of New Biologically Active Chemicals

InnovationWell Workshop Activity, 14.00-16.00
Ansgar J. Pommer (SkinSysTec), Analyzing in-situ Proteomics by Multi Epitope Ligand Kartography (MELK) for Detection of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Biomarkers

Press Release:  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/9/prweb443727.htm

June 27, 2006

eCheminfo Drug Discovery Community of Practice InterAction Meeting, 16-19 October 2006, Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia

The eCheminfo Community of Practice InterAction Meeting "Latest Advances in Drug Discovery Design & Planning Methods" will take place 16-19 October 2006, Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia, USA

Program themes include Structure-based Drug Design (SBDD), Screening & Docking, Cheminformatics & Modeling supporting Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacophores, Metabolomics, Quantum Biochemistry, Knowledge Management, Electronic Lab Notebooks, Critical Path Innovation in Drug Development, Biomarkers, Predictive Toxicology & ADME. In addition to morning presentations and panel discussions, workshops will run each afternoon expanding on the discussion of topics and methods and working through the application of new methods and software to drug discovery & development problems, with bbq, social activity and poster sessions running on campus during the evenings.

The SBDD session will be chaired by Frank Hollinger (Locus Pharmaceuticals) and includes presentations from himself and Erin Duffy (Rib-X), Mike Malams (Wyeth), Debananda Das (NCI), and Max Cummings (J&J PR&D)

The screening session will include Stan Young (NISS), John Irwin (UCSF), Deepak Bandyopadhyay (J&J PR&D), Daryll Reid (Simbiosys), Gregory Warren (GSK), and William Douglas Figg (NCI). We will also host a screening forum to discuss current virtual screening and docking methods and software, results of existing validation and comparison studies, and procedures for community of practice studies to be undertaken.

Bench Scientists & Modellers will discuss their experiences in using Discovery Tools & Modeling in experimental drug discovery and will include Chris Cooper (BMS), James Arnold (Astra-Zeneca), Phil Edwards (Astra-Zeneca), Pete Connolly (J&J PRD), Dimitris Agrafiotis (J&J PRD), and Jim Wikel (Coalesix).

The Pedictive Tox day brings together leading ADME & Tox experts and includes a Keynote from Tudor Oprea and seminars from Navita Mallalieu (Roche), Alex Tropsha (UNC), Curt Breneman (RPI), Karim Kassam (ACD/Labs), Michael Bolger (USC School of Pharmacy), Bob Clark (Tripos), and Gilles Klopman (Multicase).

The program also includes InnovationWell sessions on Drug Development, Metabolomics, Biomarkers, Knowledge Management, and Decision Support which are also available to all registrants to attend.

The preliminary program and schedule can be viewed at http://www.echeminfo.com/COMTY_conferences/

Reduced rates apply for early registration through 30 June. Academic discounts apply.  All registrants are eligible to submit an abstract (ca. 300 words) for the poster sessions.

Please address any questions related to the conference, exhibition or workshop program to Dr. Barry Hardy, eCheminfo Community of Practice Manager, +41 61 851 0170, barry.hardy [at] douglasconnect.com.  Registration enquiries should be directed to eCheminfo [at] douglasconnect.com

Barry Hardy

Communities of Practice

eCheminfo Chairs, Presenters & Instructors