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OctOBER 28 - DAY 1

8:00-9:00

Registration Open

Continental Breakfast 

EPNEC Lobby

Great Room AB

8:45-9:00

Welcome & Announcements


Ron Dolle, PhD, Director of the Center for Drug Discovery

WashU Center for Drug Discovery

9:00 – 10:00

Opening Keynote

Moderator: Ron Dolle

Reimagining Drugability using Chemoproteomic Platforms

Daniel Nomura, PhD

University of California, Berkeley

Frontier Medicine
 
 
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break & Poster Mounting  
     

10:30 - 12:00

Session 1: New Approach Methods (NAMs) in DDD

Moderator: Maaike Everts

10:30

Pluripotent stem cell directed model of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease for mechanism and drug discovery

Jack Song, PhD

University of Alabama, Birmingham
 11:00

A Generalizable Deep Learning Framework for Protein-Ligand Affinity Ranking

Benjamin P. Brown, MD, PhD

Dept. of Pharmacology and Center for AI in Protein Dynamics, Vanderbilt University

11:30


Qualification of Complex in vitro Models for Regulatory Decision Making 

Graham Marsh, PhD

Critical Path Institute


 
 

12:00 - 1:15

LUNCH (included)
 
 

1:15 - 2:45

Session 2: Advancing Your Innovation

Moderator: Julie Conkright-Fincham
1:15 

Evaluating the Commercial Potential of Therapeutic Products

Gary Robinson, PhD

Business Development Consultant 		 

1:45

 Drug Discovery and Development at WashU: The Needleman Program

Shripad Bhagwat, PhD

Needleman Program for Innovation and Commercialization at WashU Medicine 

 2:15 

Special Topics in Patent Law for Academic Researchers 

D. Brian Shortel, PhD

Ballard Spahr LLP
     

2:55 - 3:15

Coffee Break
     

3:15 - 4:15

Session 3: Lessons in Perseverance

Moderator: Joshua Bauer

3:15

The Development of mGlu4 Positive Allosteric Modulators for the Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease

Colleen Niswender, PhD

Vanderbilt University
3:45

Understanding Bias in AI-Driven Drug Discovery:  A Chordoma Case Study

Guillermo Vela, MS, BA

CEO, NeuScience
 
     

4:15 - 4:45

Session 4: Posters Lightning Round (Trainees will have 3 mins. to present onstage)

Moderator: Paige Vinson

  • P-11: Intersectional high-throughput screening uncovers a synergistic drug combination for a rare and lethal skin cancer - Khalid Garman, Georgetown University
  • P- 14: Dendrimer-Conjugated Propofol Enables Non-Sedating Neuroinflammation Therapy With >30-Fold Therapeutic Index Gain - MeiXiang Huang, Johns Hopkins University
  • P-16: Investigating dysregulated microRNAs in Rett syndrome that regulate the GRM7 3’UTR - Genevieve Hunn, Vanderbilt University
  • P- 19: Identification of a Drug-like Negative Allosteric Modulator of the Mu-Opioid Receptor (Mu-NAM) - Mengchu Li, University of Michigan
  • P-24: Investigating Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 7 as a Drug Target for Cognitive Phenotypes in Neurofibromatosis Type 1 - Harrison Parent, Vanderbilt University
  • P-31 : Orally Bioavailable GCPII Inhibitor Promotes Remyelination After Peripheral Nerve Injury - Yu Su, Johns Hopkins University
  
 
 

5:15 - 7:15

Welcome Reception with Posters (poster judging)

Oct. 29 - DAY 2

Will
7:45 - 8:45   ADDC Board Meeting (invitation only)   
     

8:00 - 9:00

Continental Breakfast
8:45 - 9:00

Welcome & Announcements


Ron Dolle, PhD

Director of the Center for Drug Discovery, Washington University of St. Louis

  
 8:55 Sponsor Spotlight: Collaborative Drug Discovery   
 

James White, PhD

Director of Collaborative Communications at CDD Vault

  

9:00 – 10:30

Session 5: Funding Sources for 2026 and Beyond

Moderator: Colleen Niswender


9:00

The Translational Therapeutics Accelerator (TRxA): Maturing Your Academic Asset In University Walls

Maaike Everts, PhD

Critical Path Institute
 9:20

Due Diligence?  What Does “Good” Look Like & How Might We Prepare?

Michael Myers, PhD

Associate Vice President & Head of Due Diligence, Eli Lilly & Co.

  
 9:40

Biotech Venture Capital in 2026: What do VCs look for?

Ryan Sullivan, PhD

Curie.Bio

  
10:00 Panel Discussion  

   
10:30 - 11:00 

Coffee Break

  
     

11:00 – 11:30

Session 6: IMPACT Lightning Round

Three 10-minute program overviews, selected from IMPACT database submissions

Moderator: Bill Messer
 11:00

Treating ischemic stroke and noise-induced hearing loss with novel blockers of calcium-permeable AMPA-type glutamate receptors

Mark Rutherford, WashU

  
 11:10

Clinical stage oral drug for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and Pipeline 2nd Generation compounds for IBD and other indications

Mark R. Kelley, Indiana University

  

 11:20

A Synthetic, Allosteric Inhibitor of Human Factor XIa for Lung Cancer Associated Thrombosis

Umesh Desai, Virginia Commonwealth University

  
     
11:30 - 12:00  Session 7: Awards & Recognitions  
 


Paige Vinson, PhD

ADDC / Southern Research

  
     
12:00 - 1:15

LUNCH (included) & Poster Removal

  
 
 

1:15 - 2:15

Session 8: Novel Approaches to Discovery 

Moderator: Maxene Ilagan


1:15

Encoding Chemicals and Assays with DNA: Applications in Drug Discovery and Development

Casey Krusemark, PhD

Purdue University
1:45

Computationally driven drug discovery as a platform for a new generation DDC

Vsevolod Katritch, PhD

Professor of Quantitative & Computational Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacology,  University of Southern California

  
     

2:15 – 3:15

Closing Keynote:  Learning From the Past, Looking to the Future 

Moderator: Ron Dolle

Stronger Together: How Collaboration Drives Academic Drug Discovery

Barbara Slusher, PhD

Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery 

3:15 – 3:30

Closing Remarks / Adjourn


Ron Dolle, PhD

Director of the Center for Drug Discovery, Washington University of St. Louis


Invitation to Biogenerator Reception


Alex Andrews

Senior Associate, BioGenerator Ventures


   
3:30 - 4:00 Post-Conference Networking & Coffee Break  
   
4:30 - 6:30 BioGenerator Startup Incubator Reception  (Advance RSVP required; limited space)  The Cortex (~12 min walk)



 


 

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