Neglected Diseases: Finding New Treatments by Combining Drug Design, System Biology, and Toxicity Predictions

eCheminfo
Scientists Against Malaria
Monday, August 24, 2015 - 10:00am to Friday, August 28, 2015 - 1:00pm
Pharmacy Building Large Pod

http://echeminfo.com/events/drug-discovery-canada-2015

Co-organised by Scientists Against Malaria and eCheminfo.

Invitation to a Round Table

Neglected tropical diseases are a diverse group of diseases with distinct characteristics that thrive mainly among the poorest populations. They are endemic in 149 countries and affect more than 1.4 billion people, costing developing economies billions of dollars every year (source: World Heath Organization). The non-for-profit organizations Scientists Against Malaria and eCheminfo would like to invite you to a round table discussing possible approaches to fight these diseases including possibilities for Canadian-European research initiatives. Over the last years, Scientists Against Malaria was building a network of experts developing innovative new approaches focusing but not limited to Malaria. eChemInfo organized a number of hands-on workshops, in which experts presented state-of-the-art computational methods for drug design, system biology, and toxicity prediction. These were then directly applied to proteins of the Malaria pathogen by the participants. To bring this concept to the next stage, we would like to strengthen this network even more by an open discussion on how the excellent research performed at the University of Toronto and nearby institutes can be applied and how we can react to the important socially responsibilities by building Canadian-European consortia working on these diseases. Below you find an outline of planned activities. On Monday, we start with a short introduction to Scientists Against Malaria and eChemInfo presented by different researchers involved in past activities. Then we would like to give you the chance to present yourself, your research, and your ideas. You are invited give a short presentation or just join the discussion. In the following days, the possibilities and challenges will be discussed in different working groups.

We would be very delighted to be able to welcome you to some or all of these events and are looking forward to a very productive week. And please feel free to forward this invitation to colleague who might be interested in this topic.

For registration or if you have any additional question please contact us via email:

Rob.Reedijk@douglasconnect.com or Thomas.Exner@douglasconnect.com

 

Monday August 24th:

Room: Pharmacy Building Large Pod

10-13: Welcome and Short Presentations

  1. Scientist Against Malaria, eChemInfo and Douglas Connect
  2. Neglected Diseases
    1. Ian Crandall (University of Toronto)
    2. Raymond Hui (University of Toronto)
    3. joining via GTM: Jürgen Bosch (Johns Hopkins University)
    4. Alessandro Contini (University of Milan)
  3. Computational methods in drug design, system biology, and toxicity predictions
    1. Tim Dudgeon (Informatics Matters Ltd.)
    2. Paul Hawkins (OpenEye)
    3. joining via GTM: Nicolas Moitessier (McGill)
    4. joining via GTM: Alessandro Di Domizio (Spilloproject, Milan)
    5. Thomas Exner (Douglas Connect and University of Tübingen)
    6. Barry Hardy (Douglas Connect)

14-17: Round table with short presentations (chair: Thomas Exner)

 

Tuesday August 25th:

Room: Pharmacy Building Large Pod

9-18: Working group “Software Tools”

  1. Bring your own problems (chairs: Thomas Exner and Alessandro Contini)
  2. Software infrastructure (chair: Tim Dudgeon)
  1. Exploring new, emerging fields
  2. Knowledge infrastructures
  3. Interoperability drug design – bioinformatics – systems biology

9-12: Working group “Teaching Workshops” (chair: Barry Hardy)

  1. Contemporary trends
  2. Workshop activities in 2016
  3. Topics covered and anticipated participants
  4. Speaker lists for Milan and Toronto
  5. Advertisement strategies

 

 

Wednesday August 26th:

Room: Pharmacy Building Large Pod

9-18: Working group “Neglected Diseases” (chairs: Jürgen Bosch and Ian Crandall)

  1. Linking experimental and computational approaches
  2. Funding opportunities
  3. Canadian-European cooperation
  4. PhD training networks and postdoc fellowships (e.g. Marie-Curie International Fellowship)

 

Room: Pharmacy Building Large Pod

Thursday August 27th:

9-12: Working group “Translational Aspects” (chairs: Raymond Hui)

How do we implement the research into real world practice?

9-18: Open house – discussions of specific aspects in smaller groups

 

Friday August 28th:

Room: Pharmacy Building Large Pod

10-13: Round table: Next steps (chair: Thomas Exner)