Speakers

Prof. Bruno Botta is Rector of UnitelmaSapienza University of Rome from October 2023. Full Professor since 2001, he was Deputy Provost for the Internationalization at Sapienza University of Rome from November 2014 to October 2023 and Head of the Department of Chemistry and Technology of Drugs from 2011 to 2020. He was Chair of the COST Action CM-1407 “Challenging organic syntheses inspired by nature – from natural products chemistry to drug discovery” (2015-2019). From 2011 to 2023 Prof. Botta was Head of the Specialization School of Chemistry and Hazard identification, risk assessment and control. In 2009 he was cofounder of the University Spin-off named MoLiRom, which is specialized in the isolation of Natural Compounds derived from higher plants, in Protein Specialties and in making chiral chromatography stationary phases. His research interest includes: isolation, biotransformation and synthesis of biologically active compounds from medicinal plants; synthesis and host-guest studies of artificial receptors from the resorcarenes family, suitable for molecular recognition and drug delivery; discovery and development of organic molecules and natural compounds inhibiting the Hedgehog signaling pathway. He is co-author of more than 200 publications, 8 national and international patents and 6 book chapters and he is editor of 2 books.

Andrea Cavalli is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Bologna. In January 2023, he was appointed Director of CECAM (Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire) at the EPFL. Until 2022, he was the Director of Computational Sciences and the Vice-Scientific Director of the Italian Institute of Technology. His research combines computational physics/chemistry with drug discovery, focusing mainly on cancer. He has developed and applied algorithms and protocols to accelerate and enhance the discovery of novel lead and drug candidates. He has recently led a project to build genomics and computational infrastructures for precision medicine in collaboration with clinics and hospitals. He published over 300 scientific papers and delivered over 150 seminars and lectures.

Gerhard Ecker is Professor of Pharmacoinformatics and Head of the Pharmacoinformatics Research Group at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Vienna. Gerhard received his doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Vienna and performed his post-doctoral training at the group of J. Seydel in Borstel (Germany). His research focuses on computational drug design with special emphasis on drug-transporter interaction and in silico safety assessment. He participated in 5 EU-funded projects related to toxicology and coordinated the Open PHACTS project, which created an Open Pharmacological Space by semantic integration of public databases. Gerhard served 2009 – 2011 as President of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry, and from 2018 – 2022 as Dean at the Faculty of Life Sciences. In 2018 he founded the company Phenaris, which leverages linked open data for safety assessment of drug candidates.

Stefano Forli is an Associate Professor at the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at the Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla (USA) and the Director of the National Resource for Structure-based Computational Drug Discovery. He got a Master degree in Medicinal Chemistry and a PhD in Molecular Modelling at the University of Siena, training under the supervision of Prof. Maurizio Botta. After a post-doc in the laboratory of Prof. Arthur Olson, he started his laboratory in 2015 at the Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla. The Forli lab leads the development of the open-source AutoDock Suite, the most widely used docking software. His group is focused on the design and application of new computational methods to structural biology and drug design, expanding the horizon of applications of structure-based methods. They combine different modeling techniques to analyze macromolecular structures, assess their druggability, and identify molecules capable of perturbing their function. His lab has been involved in many drug discovery projects, spanning multiple therapeutic areas, including antivirals, cancer treatments, and neurodegenerative disorders.

Anders Hogner PhD is a drug hunter with +20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry in the field of chemistry/computer aided drug design. Anders is currently head of Computational Chemistry in Medicinal Chemistry in Early Cardiovascular Renal and Metabolism BioPharmaceuticals R&D. Part of Anders role involves co-leading AstraZeneca’s CADD strategy global lead of IT demands from the business and part of team delivering AstraZeneca’s Augmented Drug Discovery environment. During 2017-2018 Anders also acted as interim head of Computational Chemistry for Respiratory Inflammation and Autoimmunity (RIA) disease unit. He has proven-track record of impacting projects milestones through innovative approaches resulted in being named co-inventor on 3 clinical drug projects and ability to bring in new methodologies and collaborations. He is passionate about talent management mentoring and developing people to achieve key deliverables in a performance-driven setting.

Mehran Jalaie (MJ) is an Associate Research Fellow in the Medicine Design Department supporting Oncology projects based in Pfizer La Jolla. MJ earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1999 from Purdue University and completed postdoctoral studies at Eli Lilly prior to joining Pfizer, Ann Arbor in 2001, where he was the lead computational investigator for cardiovascular and CNS projects. In 2007, MJ relocated to Pfizer La Jolla to work on Oncology targets and began driving computational strategies which had a direct impact on project transitions (e.g. PI3Ka, STING, SMO, CDK4, HPK1 and more). MJ serves as the chair of the Global Virtual Screening team at Pfizer. Over the years, his team has created the state-of-the-art tools for lead hopping and hit identifications. In addition, this multidisciplinary team has enabled VS in Ultra-Large space and the DNA-encoded libraries to identify new PMC-enabled leads. Furthermore, MJ leads a Protein-Ligand QM Scoring collaboration with the Czech Academy of Sciences to expand and improve in-house options for protein-ligand scoring. MJ has more than 35 publications and numerous patents and invited presentations: In 2022, he was awarded the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Mid-Career Investigator Award.

Martin Lepšík is senior researcher at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB), Prague, Czech Republic. His major research topic is protein-ligand non-covalent interactions described using quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics methods. The molecular systems he has been working on are rather varied, from inorganic boron clusters, via protein/cation/water/ligand complexes to insulin receptor. In 2018, Martin Lepšík was awarded Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship to work for two years at CERMAV, CNRS, Grenoble, France with Anne Imberty on multivalent lectin ligands and also became visiting researcher at the University of Leeds, U.K. with Emanuele Paci. Martin Lepšík actively promotes computer-aided drug design by giving courses at Czech universities and his home research institute. Besides academic research, Martin Lepšík is part of team at IOCB which aims at commercionalisation of semiempirical quantum mechanical scoring of protein-ligand interactions. These efforts have resulted in repeated non-exclusive licensing of the software prototype to Top-5 U.S-based pharmaceutical company.

Daniel Rauh studied pharmacy at the University of Greifswald and received his Ph.D. in 2003 with Gerhard Klebe in Marburg. After his postdoctoral work with Milton Stubbs in Halle and Kevan Shokat in San Francisco, he joined the Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society in Dortmund as a junior group leader. Since 2013, Daniel has been a full professor and chair of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at TU Dortmund University. His research group is leading the way in the treatment of genetically defined cancers, employing a combination of protein X-ray crystallography, structure-based design approaches, organic synthesis, and biochemical and cellular compound screening. This multidisciplinary approach is focused on elucidating the mechanisms of acquired resistance in cancer and developing next-generation inhibitors. Beyond his academic research, Daniel has shown a deep commitment to bridging the gap between academic research and practical application. He was instrumental in establishing the Center for Integrated Drug Research (ZIW) and the Drug Discovery Hub Dortmund (DDHD) at TU Dortmund University. These facilities serve as incubators for the translation of basic academic research into pharmaceutical applications, exemplifying his dedication to both scientific discovery and its practical translation. In addition to these academic pursuits, Daniel is a serial entrepreneur, having founded several startups focusing on the development of targeted cancer therapies. These ventures are a testament to his passion for translating scientific knowledge into actionable, practical solutions in the ongoing battle against cancer.

Hanoch Senderowitz is a professor of computational chemistry at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Prof. Senderowitz completed his Ph.D. studies in computational organic chemistry with Professor Benzion Fuchs at Tel Aviv University and his post-doctoral training, as a Fulbright scholar, with Professor Clark Still in the MacroModel development team at Columbia University. Upon his return to Israel, he joined the pharmaceutical industry first at Peptor Ltd. and latter at EPIX Pharmaceutical where is served as Executive Director Computational Development. In 2009, Prof. Senderowitz moved to the Department of Chemistry at Bar-Ilan University where he is heading the laboratory ofmolecular modeling, computer aided drug design and chemoinformatics. A major focus of his research is the development, implementation and usage of molecular modeling tools and machine learning algorithms in various fields including chemoinformatics, materials-informatics agro-informatics and forensic-informatics.

Rebecca Wade studied at the University of Oxford (B.A. Hons. in physics, 1985; D. Phil. in Molecular Biophysics, 1988). She then carried out postdoctoral research at the universities of Houston and Illinois before taking up a position as a group leader in the Structural and Computational Biology Programme at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg in 1992. Rebecca Wade set up the Molecular and Cellular Modeling Group at HITS (which was then known as the European Media Laboratory and later as EML Research) in 2001. She was Adjunct Professor at the International University in Germany in Bruchsal from 2001-2003. Rebecca Wade was appointed full Professor at Heidelberg University in 2012 and is a member of the Faculty of Biosciences. She was Scientific Director of HITS from 2015 to 2016.