Small things are important, not only for what they are themselves, but because they can be part of something greater. This is the case for small molecules. With a tiny size of less than 1kDa, these molecules — that include lipids, monosaccharides, second messengers as well as a number of natural and synthetic organic compounds — play crucial roles in key biological pathways. Moreover, small molecules have long been used for nutritional and therapeutic purposes and make up over 90% of the drugs in the market today.
The small molecule field is gaining momentum. This can be illustrated by the impressive development of analytical techniques to improve their quality, as well as by the use of small molecules in new therapeutic modalities that promise to unlock the once “undruggable” targets, including PROTAC technology and the targeting of disease-causing RNAs.
If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest advancements in this field, here are 3 conferences to keep an eye on.
1. 7th NovAliX Conference
November 13-15, 2019 Kyoto, Japan
This conference will bring together biophysicists and medicinal chemists, to exploit the wealth of new modalities and potential therapeutic targets in order to address more unmet medical needs, as illustrated by the development of PROTACs. During the conference, current hot topics such as cryo-EM and its use in drug discovery will also be discussed.
2. Expanding the Druggable Proteome With Chemical Biology
February 5-7, 2020 Heidelberg, Germany
Co-organized with industry partners of the EMBL Corporate Partnership Programme, this conference aims to bring together academic and industrial scientists who are interested in expanding the druggable proteome. The conference will explore how recent advances in chemical biology are helping to expand the druggable proteome and enhance the understanding of disease biology.
3. Drug Discovery Chemistry
April 13-17, 2020 San Diego, United States
This will be the Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s 15th annual Drug Discovery Chemistry conference. This conference is made up of smaller concurrent meetings that are all focused on the discovery and optimization challenges of small molecule drug candidates. Some of the concurrent meeting topics include fragment-based drug discovery, protein-protein interactions, and kinase inhibitor chemistry.
That concludes the list. Join and be ready to see how these small molecules conferences can inspire some amazing ideas.
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