Learn

The Emerging Biology track will provide an overview of the new discoveries and trends in biology that could impact the way screening and diagnostics laboratories work. Established and emerging scientific leaders will discuss innovative ways to tackle long lasting challenges in biology, new therapeutic modalities and strategies to understand drugs' mode of action. Through these scientific lectures, attendees will gain familiarity with the techniques and methods from experts in the field. Planned sessions include:

Innovations to Tackle Old Biology - Silvia Scaglione, Ph.D. (React4Life)
In the last several years, the adoption of novel multi-sectoral technological approaches have significantly advanced the field of biology. This session will explore some of these innovations (e.g. bioprinting, organ on chips) and their adoption in tissue engineering, disease modeling and drug testing fields. New challenging aspects of these highly predictive cellular models overpassing the current old biology will be presented by the session speakers.

Understanding and Harnessing Drug Mode of Action - Daniel Thomas, Ph.D. (Arctoris)
Understanding the pathophysiological context in which drug targets function and the mechanistic details of drug-target interactions are critical to efficient and effective drug discovery. Investing time and energy characterising unexpected observations can lead to novel discoveries that can drive the development of new and improved medicines. This session will discuss emerging trends and scientific innovations, exploring methodological advances and presenting case examples, all highlighting the critical role of mechanistic biology in 21st century drug discovery.

New Biology - Ivan Dikic, Ph.D. (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Major progress has been made in the field of biology through the use of innovative technologies and large scale data sets. This session goes one step further and will cover new emerging biological topics with relevance to biomedicine that have potential impact on diagnostics and therapeutics. Speakers will present new and challenging aspects that will help researchers better understand organelle dynamics and the life cycle of cells.

Enabling Novel Therapeutic Modalities - Alessio Ciulli, Ph.D. (University of Dundee)
Novel discovery modalities allow tackling targets considered undruggable, or intractable, by classical small molecules such as enzyme inhibitors or receptor agonists/antagonists and therefore have potential to expand the druggable space and enable intervention in areas of unmet medical needs. This session will highlight and discuss recent trends of chemical biology and discovery chemistry on new modalities of chemical intervention - including degraders such as PROTACs/molecular glues and CRISPR technologies. It will also highlight unusual protein target classes such as transcription factors for novel therapeutic concepts and why emerging therapeutic modalities and targets are ripe for innovation.

The Emerging Technologies track will host renowned experts and innovators in laboratory screening and automation to discuss novel technologies in the fields of diagnostics and physiologically relevant screening models. The ever-growing importance of digital sciences in our daily routine will be represented by two sessions focusing on the use of artificial intelligence approaches for data acquisition and analysis. Attendees can expect powerful insights on the technological advances that may transform their businesses and processes. Planned sessions include:

Recent Developments in Diagnostics - Nikolaus Krall, Ph.D. (Exscientia)
This session will explore recent innovation in disease detection, classification and treatment decision-making driven by both novel analytical and computational methods. Emerging approaches beyond classical molecular diagnostics for precision medicine and beyond will also be discussed.

Laboratory Automation for Physiologically Relevant Screening Models - Melanie Leveridge (GlaxoSmithKline)
This session will explore how automation is enabling increased scale and wider implementation of previously low-throughput and laborious cellular screening models. The discussion will focus on the workflows and cell systems that are being enabled, such as the automation of 3D systems, iPSC cultures and organ-on-a-chip models for target identification, lead generation and safety screening. Improved quality and reproducibility, as well as richer information content and more comprehensive datasets amenable to AI/ML and predictive modeling will also be discussed.

Smart Labs: AI for Laboratory Engineering and Data Acquisition - Ola Engkvist, Ph.D. (AstraZenca)
How can the great scientific community create large-scale data sets for machine learning and AI modeling? Machine learning modeling with historical data have several limitations creating an urgent need to create new large and high-quality data sets through the use of automation. Examples to be discussed in this session include high-throughput experimentation data to optimize reaction condistion and substrate scope, image data from cell paint sceening and transcriptomics technologies like DrugSeq.

Explainable AI for Biological Interpretation - Paula Petrone, Ph.D. (El Instituto de Salud Global de Barcelona)
This session will illustrate the use of AI as a tool for the discovery and interpretation of novel biological phenomena, including new chemical entities, molecular pathways and mechanisms, and disease phenotypes. Examples will include the application of various analytical techniques — from multimodal analyses and knowledge graphs to deep learning and computer vision for image analyses — that can uncover and explain hidden patterns in biological data.

The aim of this track is to familiarize the European scientific community with the particularities of the life sciences in the "Old Continent." What are the regulation and climate differences between Europe and other regions? What kind of interactions and connections are needed to thrive as entrepreneur? How can careers be successfully (re)shaped in these special conditions? Two panel sessions and several lectures will give attendees the opportunity to hear real life, first-hand stories. Planned sessions include:

Panel Discussion: Creating Value through Entrepreneurship - Frank Kalkbrenner, Ph.D. (Boehringer Ingelheim)
Session description coming soon

Ownership and Diversity in Career Development - George Okafo, Ph.D. (Boehringer Ingelheim)
In this new digitised working environment, ownership and diversity in career development is the key to success. Whether it is retraining due to digitalisation or coping mid-career, it is vital to own, drive and diversify development. Hear from inspirational leaders from different backgrounds who have demonstrated this in their own careers.

Panel Discussion: Taking the Pain Out of Partnerships - Anton Ussi (EATRIS)
Working across institutional and geographical borders is often essential for success, yet is tough to master. Is there a secret recipe for painless collaboration, or is misery inevitable? Hear the do's and don'ts of partnering up, on the basis of success stories - and abject failures - from the field.

Succeeding in the European Ecosystem - Severine Tamas-Lhoustau, Ph.D. (Novoptim)
The drug discovery industry has become global and is constantly adapting to a fast-paced and evolving environment. In additiona, the European ecosystem holds some specificities that need to be considered when doing business in this region. Speakers in this session will share their experience and key learnings on how to address this rapidly evolving market.