Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s 4th Annual

AI/ML-Enabled Drug Discovery - Part 2

Part 2: Discovering and Validating New Targets, Pathways, and Drug Responses

September 24 - 25, 2025 ALL TIMES EDT

Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s two-part conference on Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML)-Enabled Drug Discovery will highlight the increasing use of computational tools, predictive modeling, algorithms, and data analysis for identifying novel drug targets, designing new drug candidates, optimizing leads, and ADMET properties, drug repurposing and other diverse applications. Relevant case studies and research findings will show where and how AI/ML can be successfully applied, integrated, and implemented in drug discovery. It will bring together chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, data scientists, and bioinformaticians to talk about what is being done and what can be made possible, while understanding the underlying caveats of AI-enabled decision-making.

Wednesday, September 24

PLENARY KEYNOTE PROGRAM

10:50 am

Welcome Remarks from Tanuja Koppal, PhD, Discovery on Target Team Lead

Tanuja Koppal, PhD, Senior Conference Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

11:05 am PLENARY KEYNOTE:

GLP-1 Unveiled: Key Takeaways for Next-Generation Drug Discovery

Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, PhD, Chief Scientific Advisor, Head of IDEA (Innovation&Data Experimentation Advancement), Novo Nordisk AS

This talk will explore the evolution of GLP-1 as a significant component in diabetes and obesity treatment, as well as its direct impact on multiple co-morbidities. It will highlight the role of industry innovation and scientific persistence in overcoming challenges posed by its short half-life, ultimately leading to the successful development of GLP-1 therapies. Key lessons from this journey will inform future drug discovery strategies, emphasizing that today’s drug discovery must be based on human data.

11:40 am PLENARY KEYNOTE:

Medicines, Integrins, and Organoids

Timothy A. Springer, PhD, Professor, Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School; Senior Investigator, Boston Children's Hospital; Founder, Institute for Protein Innovation

Integrins are therapeutically important cell surface adhesion molecules that localize cells within tissues and  provide many signals. Despite their essential role in stimulating growth of stem cells into organoids, the potential of integrins to regulate formation of more tissue-like organoids is unexplored. I will discuss the effects of integrin agonists and antagonists on organoid formation with a long-term goal of guiding development of vascularized, mixed-lineage organoids.

12:15 pmNetworking Lunch in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

ADOPTION & IMPACT OF AI/ML

1:45 pmWelcome Remarks
1:50 pm

Chairperson's Remarks

Shruthi Bharadwaj, PhD, Pharma Leader & Executive, Investor, Advisor & Start-Up Partner

1:55 pm PANEL DISCUSSION:

AI in Life Sciences & Healthcare: Balancing Innovation, Regulation, and Real-World Impact

PANEL MODERATOR:

Shruthi Bharadwaj, PhD, Pharma Leader & Executive, Investor, Advisor & Start-Up Partner

As artificial intelligence continues to transform drug discovery, diagnostics, and healthcare delivery, collaboration between industry, academia, and government becomes increasingly vital. This panel brings together leaders from all three sectors to explore how to accelerate innovation while ensuring safety, equity, and effectiveness. Panelists will discuss the evolving regulatory landscape, ethical considerations, translational challenges, and the role of public-private partnerships in shaping the future of AI in life sciences and healthcare.

PANELISTS:

Sherri Cherry, MBA, Deputy CIO, Defense Health Agency

Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Partner & Life Sciences AI Leader, AI Pharma & Life Sciences, PwC

Raquel Mura, PharmD, Founder, RGM Life Sciences Consulting; Former Vice President & Head, R&D North America, Sanofi

William Streilein, PhD, Formerly Principal Staff, Biotechnology & Human Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2:55 pm Integrated Molecular Design with AI/ML and Physics-Based Simulation towards Efficient DMTA Cycle Execution

Gayathri Ramaswamy, PhD, Global Head, Discovery Services, AURIGENE PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES LIMITED

Recent breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are transforming various fields, including drug discovery. Traditionally, developing a drug takes about >10 years and costs billions of dollars. This high cost makes these medicines unaffordable for many patients.

AI and ML are being used to streamline drug discovery, reducing both time and expense. AI-powered drug candidates show a significantly higher success rate in clinical trials compared to traditional methods. This success is due to combining fundamental scientific data, particularly physics simulations, with AI and ML. This approach optimizes the Design-Make-Test-Analyze (DMTA) cycle shorter, leading to faster and cheaper development. We've demonstrated molecular design strategy bridging physics-based simulations along with AI/ML and lab-in-loop approach to identify of novel inhibitors for kinase related drug targets.

3:25 pmRefreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

Recharge during our refreshment break! Visit booths, view posters, connect with peers, and turn in your Game Cards for a chance to win a raffle prize. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet the Venture Capitalists who will be participating in the panel following the break. And Connect the DOT’s with participants driving the Collaborations Discussion following the VC panel.

VENTURE CAPITALIST INSIGHTS

4:15 pm

PLENARY PANEL DISCUSSION: Venture Capitalist Insights into Trends in Drug Discovery

PANEL MODERATOR:

Daniel A. Erlanson, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer, Frontier Medicines Corporation

Topics to be discussed: 

  • Key drivers of innovation in drug discovery
  • Overcoming hurdles in translating discoveries from the lab to the clinic
  • Impact of AI/machine learning, emerging drug modalities, pursuit of challenging drug targets
  • Navigating the current regulatory and funding environment
  • Perspectives on upcoming challenges and opportunities​ in drug development
PANELISTS:

Olga Danilchanka, PhD, Partner, MRL Ventures Fund

Chris De Savi, PhD, CSO Partner, Curie Bio

Jamie Kasuboski, PhD, Partner, Luma Group

Brendan Kelly, PhD, Principal, Lightstone Ventures

David Kolesky, PhD, Principal, MPM Capital LLC

Blair Willette, PhD, Associate, KdT Ventures

5:15 pmDinner Short Course Registration*

COLLABORATIVE CONVERSATION

IN-PERSON PLENARY DISCUSSION: Connecting the DOTs to Spark Change!

Shruthi Bharadwaj, PhD, Pharma Leader & Executive, Investor, Advisor & Start-Up Partner

Sean Ekins, PhD, Founder & CEO, Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Saudat Fadeyi, PhD, MBA, Head, Business Development & Strategy, Samyang Biopharm USA, Inc.

Raquel Mura, PharmD, Founder, RGM Life Sciences Consulting; Former Vice President & Head, R&D North America, Sanofi

Nisha Perez, ScD, MS, MSPM, Head of DMPK & Clinical Pharmacology, HotSpot Therapeutics

Join us for an hour of inspiring, informal discussions on how to forge connections and create impactful ecosystems that will help you think, act, and thrive. We have invited pharma, biotech, and academic leaders to share their stories and experiences and to discuss key learnings. There will be time for open discussion and networking.

This session will not be recorded for on-demand viewing. See details on our Plenary Sessions Page.

6:00 pmDinner Short Courses*

*All Access Package or separate registration required. See Short Courses page for details.

8:30 pmClose of Day

Thursday, September 25

7:30 amRegistration Open and Morning Coffee

AI/ML FOR BIOLOGICS DRUG DEVELOPMENT

8:00 am

Chairperson's Remarks

Victor Guallar, PhD, Professor, Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Nostrum Biodiscovery

8:05 am

Combining Generative VAE and Protein Language Models for Drug Screening

Victor Guallar, PhD, Professor, Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Nostrum Biodiscovery

Active learning cycles in drug discovery are boosting hit finding in terms of true positive rates and generating diversity by means of screening ultra large libraries or using generative modelling. We are exploring to further boost their performance by adding a learning  step based on affinity predictions through Protein Language models, significantly speeding up the process and allowing to implement it in parallel to dozens of targets.

8:35 am

Drug Discovery and AlphaFold: Are We Missing the Real Target?

Michael Liebman, PhD, Managing Director, IPQ Analytics, LLC

The use of observed or predicted protein structures provides new targets, i.e. active sites, for drug development. AI/ML methods further support drug discovery and/or virtual screening but provide limited understanding of why large protein structures are preserved through evolution in support of small active sites. The ability to decipher this enigma presents new opportunities for identifying novel targets that more specifically impact biological function.

9:05 am

Role of Next-Generation Sequencing for Lead Generation and Lead Optimization in Antibody Discovery

Sonia Agrawal, PhD, Associate Principal Scientist, Biologics Engineering, AstraZeneca

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) accelerates lead generation and optimization in antibody discovery by enabling high-throughput profiling of immune repertoires. It identifies diverse candidate sequences, tracks clonal evolution, and informs affinity maturation. Advanced clustering and machine learning techniques refine downselection, preserving diversity while reducing redundancy. Integrating NGS with computational pipelines enhances the efficiency of hit-to-lead workflows, improving the selection of high-affinity, developable therapeutic antibodies.

9:35 am

Target Druggability Enabled by Machine Learning

Diane M. Joseph-McCarthy, PhD, Professor of the Practice, Biomedical Engineering, Boston University

Target evaluation is a critical step in the drug discovery process that can be advanced through a combination of physics-based and machine-learning approaches. The use of large language models for rapid literature review to identify potential drug targets for a given indication will be discussed. Next, computational hot-spot mapping using protein structures and AlphaFold models to assess binding site druggability will be described. Finally, the machine learning-enabled prediction of antibody-antigen binding for the assessment of antibody targets will be presented.

10:05 amIn-Person Breakouts

In-Person Breakouts are informal, moderated discussions, allowing participants to exchange ideas and experiences and develop future collaborations around a focused topic. Each discussion will be led by a facilitator, or facilitators, who keeps the discussion on track and the group engaged. To get the most out of this format, please come prepared to share examples from your work, be a part of a collective, problem-solving session, and participate in active idea sharing. Please visit the Breakouts page on the conference website for a complete listing of topics and descriptions.

In-Person Only BREAKOUT 9: How to Successfully Integrate and Apply AI/ML in Drug Development?

Shruthi Bharadwaj, PhD, Pharma Leader & Executive, Investor, Advisor & Start-Up Partner

Joeri Nicolaes, PhD, Computer Scientist & DT Lead, AI Solutions & Multimodal AI, UCB Pharma

In-Person Only BREAKOUT 10: Impact of AI-driven Drug Design, Screening and Optimization

Victor Guallar, PhD, Professor, Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Nostrum Biodiscovery

Diane M. Joseph-McCarthy, PhD, Professor of the Practice, Biomedical Engineering, Boston University

Yuan Wang, PhD, Head of Research Analytics, UCB Pharma

10:50 amCoffee Break in the Exhibit Hall with Book Raffle, Best of Show Poster and Exhibitor Awards Announced

Meet new collaborators, and network with clients, colleagues, and exhibitors. Make your vote count for the People’s Choice Best of Show Exhibitor award and plan to stay and cheer the winner!  Remember to enter your name for the Book Raffle!

11:30 am

Physics-Aware Deep Learning for Modeling Antibody–Antigen and TCR–MHC Interactions

Dima Kozakov, PhD, Director, AI/Physics in Drug Discovery, UT Austin

Accurately modeling antibody–antigen and TCR–MHC interactions remains a major challenge for current structure prediction methods. We present an integrated approach that augments stochastic sampling from AlphaFold-type models with physics-based refinement using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) docking, combined with machine learning architectures. This hybrid strategy enables accurate modeling of immune recognition interfaces and is particularly well-suited to biologics discovery. We demonstrate the utility of this method through blind predictions in the recent CASP/CAPRI protein interaction experiment, achieving high-precision models for antibody–antigen and TCR–MHC complexes. 

12:00 pm

De novo Design of Epitope-Specific Antibodies against Soluble and Multipass Membrane Proteins with High Specificity, Developability, and Function

Surge Biswas, PhD, Founder & CEO, Nabla Bio, Inc.

Using our generative design system JAM, we de novo design hundreds of VHH antibodies against the GPCRs CXCR4 and CXCR7 with picomolar to low nanomolar affinities, high selectivity, and strong early-stage developability. Many act as potent antagonists, and strikingly some are CXCR7 agonists—the first antibody agonists for this receptor and the first computationally designed GPCR antibody agonists—one matching the potency of CXCR7’s natural ligand SDF1a.

12:30 pm Introducing SAIR: Structurally-Augmented Potency Data at Scale

Rajeev Chaudhary, Staff Technical Product Manager, AQBIOSIM, SandboxAQ

The Structurally-augmented IC50 repository (SAIR), bridges the longstanding gap between molecular structure and drug potency prediction. With over 1 million protein–ligand pairs and 5.2 million cofolded 3D structures, SAIR enables researchers to train next-generation AI models for virtual screening, lead optimization, and more. In this presentation, we will discuss how the SAIR dataset was built, why structure–activity data at this scale is a breakthrough for AI-driven drug discovery, and how you can access and apply SAIR in your work.

1:00 pmEnjoy Lunch on Your Own

1:35 pmDessert Break in the Exhibit Hall with Book Raffle, Best of Show Poster Award, and Last Chance for Poster Viewing

Enjoy dessert and coffee during our final exhibit hall break. Did you connect with all the service providers and poster presenters? You never know what you missed! Stay till the end to maximize your time in the exhibit hall and to celebrate our Best of Show Poster award winner!

ADOPTION & INTEGRATION OF AI/ML TOOLS

2:15 pm

Chairperson's Remarks

Yuan Wang, PhD, Head of Research Analytics, UCB Pharma

2:20 pm

Automated Characterization of Naturalistic Behaviors in Mouse Models of Epilepsy

Joeri Nicolaes, PhD, Computer Scientist & DT Lead, AI Solutions & Multimodal AI, UCB Pharma

Epilepsy encompasses a set of complex, multifaceted disorders presenting a large panel of disease symptoms. We developed and validated a computational pipeline to measure behavioral phenotypes of an epilepsy animal model in an unbiased manner. We leveraged open-source ML algorithms to automatically process long-term video data and uncover behavioral fingerprints. We analyzed the usage of behavioral fingerprints across treatment groups and explored the associations between behavioral transitions and seizure events.

2:50 pm

Integrating AI and Computational Strategies to Overcome Resistance in Cancer Therapeutics

Aleksandra Karolak, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Machine Learning, Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

We integrate predictive and generative AI, computational chemistry, and computational combinatorial approaches to design and optimize small molecules targeting resistant Ras-driven tumors with complex resistance mechanisms. Through this multidisciplinary approach, we aim to accelerate the design of next-generation inhibitors and the molecular expansion of existing libraries, followed by rigorous computational optimization and experimental testing to enhance efficacy, reduce toxicity, and overcome therapeutic resistance.

3:20 pm

Accelerating Target Discovery & Validation Using a Scientific Knowledge Graph

John Piccone, Founder & CEO, URIKA bioworks

Few organizations apply a systematic approach to elucidating disease biology, discovering and characterizing novel targets. Systematically applying target discovery and validation strategies to a comprehensive corpus of scientific knowledge can yield novel targets and accelerate target discovery and validation.

3:50 pm

Characterizing Cellular Heterogeneity in Liquid Tumor to Identify Novel Targets

Yuan Wang, PhD, Head of Research Analytics, UCB Pharma

In this study, we employed scRNA-seq to uncover the complex phenotypic landscape of early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ETP-ALL). The computational analyses of gene programs revealed intricate interplay between oncogenic states and immune evasion programs that drives the complex phenotypic landscape in ETP-ALL. The cellular states and transitions identified not only improves our comprehension of disease pathogenesis but also aids in the identification of potential therapeutic targets.

4:20 pmClose of Conference





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