|
|
|
FACS Newsletter 2/2003 Report on Medicinal Chemistry Project Activities in 2001-2003
Dr. Dave Winkler
Director, Medicinal Chemistry Project,
CSIRO Molecular Science, Private Bag 10,
Clayton South MDC 3169, Australia
World Chemistry Congress/AIMEC01/9ACC Brisbane, Australia, July 2001
The ChIN project participated in this international congress, holding a symposium on QSAR and informatics, and interacting with the medicinal chemistry component of the WCC, the AIMECS01 symposium. There were almost 200 participants in this biomolecular/informatics part of the WCC, and a very interesting range of papers presented. Co-directors of ChIN participated in the planning of the biomolecular sections of the 9ACC and the AIMECS symposia. At the WCC, Dr. Winkler stepped down as co-director of ChIN. He became the director of a new medicinal chemistry project instigated by Prof. Noller. His role in ChIN was filled by Prof. Yoshimasa Takahashi, from Toyohashi University.
New Medicinal Chemistry Project
The new project amalgamates the biomolecular interests of ChIN with the Natural Products project. Dr. Winkler¡¯s co-director in the new project is Dr. Sung-eun Yoo from Korea.
¡°Bioactive Discovery in the New Millennium¡±, Lorne, Australia, February 2003
The conference was an international meeting that focused on cutting edge methods of discovering and developing new bioactive agents. It was held at the Cumberland resort in the seaside town of Lorne, Victoria, Australia. The conference abstract book and program was sent to coordinator of projects and is available as an Adobe PDF file which can be downloaded from the
web site. The conference was a joint meeting of:
- the Biomolecular Chemistry Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute;
- the European Chapters of the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society (MGMS);
- the Australian Molecular Modelling Workshop (MM2003);
- the Medicinal Chemistry project of the Federation of Asian Chemical
Societies.
|
|
|
Prof. Glen Kellogg (left), Dr. C. M Venkatachalam
(centre) and Dr. Naresh Kumar (right).
|
The conference aimed to facilitate dialog on multidisciplinary approaches to the design and development, not only of pharmaceuticals but also veterinary drugs, agrochemicals and other bioactive agents. Given the involvement of several specialist modelling societies, and the overlap with the structural biology conference, there was a focus on the use of computational methods and molecular modelling to design new bioactive agents using protein structure information. The conference attracted 175 participants and 11 trade exhibitors. Approximately 50 oral papers and 50 posters were presented.
The conference also held a "Startups and Spinoffs" workshop exploring the path between scientific discovery, invention and ultimate spinoff company. The panelists included: Prof. Paul Wender, (CellGate, Libraria); Prof. Graham Richards, (Oxford Molecular); Prof. Glen Kellogg, (EduSoft); Prof. Paul Alewood, (Auspep, Xenome); Dr. Seb Marcuccio, (Boron Molecular). The speaker presentations were followed by a panel and floor discussion and questions.
International outreach. The conference had delegates from 18 countries. There was a strong representation from the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea, Turkey, Iran, and India. As it was a joint meeting with two other international societies, it provided opportunities to strengthen ties with them. Discussions were held on starting an Asia-Pacific Chapter of the MGMS.
Student participation. The Project believes strongly that every effort needs to be made to help students participate in these conferences. Using the conference budget, we provided five $250 or $500 bursaries to students and academic staff from FACS member countries who presented talks or posters at the meeting. We also had three student prizes comprising $200 plus an Aust. J. Chem. subscription for the best oral presentation, and two prizes of $150 plus subscription for the best posters. Due to the conference being designed to maximize interactions between delegates, students were able to talk to and mix with some of the ¡®legends¡¯ of their field over meals or at social functions. This provided a very valuable inspirational component for the students.
10ACC support. The conference provided an opportunity to approach potential speakers and sponsors for the Medicinal Chemistry symposium at the 10ACC in Hanoi. One company, Accelrys, has offered to support an eminent speaker and possibly provide sponsorship or a trade exhibit in Hanoi. Other selected speakers were approached in the follow up to the conference to obtain a strong line up for the medicinal symposium. There were also offers of speakers from India.
10ACC, Hanoi, Vietnam, October 2003
The Medicinal Chemistry Project will run a symposium on one day of the 10ACC. The following eminent speakers have agreed at present invited papers (subject to local expenses being
negotiated):
- Dr. Frank Blaney (Glaxo-Smithkline) ¨C an authority on modelling GPCRs and CNS drugs;
- Prof. Tim Clark (University of Erlangen) - expert in quantum mechanics in drug discovery;
- Prof. Frank Burden (Monash University) - renown molecular descriptor and QSAR expert;
- Dr. Osman Guner (Accelrys) - an expert drug modeller and ADMET prediction expert.
Dr. Winkler will present papers on his work on neural networks and complexity theory in drug design.
If there are a good number of contributed papers the Project will run a full day symposium with an invited speaker at the start of each session (4 invited and 8-12 contributed papers). If there are few contributed papers the Project will run a half-day symposium with two invited speakers per session and one contributed paper in each (4 invited and 2-4 contributed papers).
¡¡
Back
to FACS Newsletter
TOC(2003/2) |
