AI-Powered Drug and Target Discovery
Turning AI, Data, and Biology into Faster Discovery Decisions
1/19/2027 - January 20, 2027 ALL TIMES PST
Early discovery is being reshaped by the convergence of biological data, computational reasoning, and experimentally grounded validation. CHI’s Inaugural AI-Powered Drug and Target Discovery conference will examine how AI/ ML are transforming biologic drug discovery, from disease target identification and prioritization, to validation and advancement into molecular designs and therapeutic programs. The agenda will explore how machine learning, foundation models, reasoning systems, multi-model models, active learning, screening data, and target intelligence platforms are strengthening biological hypotheses, assessing tractability, guiding modality selection, and improving discovery decisions. Sessions will examine where frontier models add value, how AI is reshaping scientific and early discovery workflows, and how AI scientist platforms and agentic systems can support literature synthesis, hypothesis generation, experimental planning, data analysis, and protein design while clarifying what still requires human judgment.
Preliminary Agenda

PLENARY KEYNOTE SESSION:
(Shared with Co-Located PepTalk)

Beyond the Funnel: Machine Learning-Powered Lab-in-the-Loop for Drug Discovery

Photo of Richard A. Bonneau, PhD, Vice President, Drug Discovery, Prescient Design, a Genentech Co. , VP , Drug Discovery , Prescient Design a Genentech Co
Richard A. Bonneau, PhD, Vice President, Drug Discovery, Prescient Design, a Genentech Co. , VP , Drug Discovery , Prescient Design a Genentech Co

We will explore how new generative AI methods are uniquely positioned to accelerate and enhance drug discovery, illustrating our "lab in the loop" process for drug discovery and lead optimization. We will differentiate between design modules, where AI can enhance tools' power and accuracy, and process optimization problems, which involve connecting data and models to experimental design for faster and improved drug discovery. The discussion will cover powerful new design modules and multi-modal foundation models that span multiple drug modalities, with primarily focus on small-molecule and large-molecule drug discovery.

Session Block

TRANSFORMING BIOLOGICS DISCOVERY IN THE ERA OF AI

Transforming Biologics Discovery in the Era of AI

Photo of Athena Hadjixenofontos, PhD, Director, Data Science & Head of AI/ML, Biotherapeutics and Genetic Medicines, Discovery Research, Abbvie , Director , Discovery Research , AbbVie
Athena Hadjixenofontos, PhD, Director, Data Science & Head of AI/ML, Biotherapeutics and Genetic Medicines, Discovery Research, Abbvie , Director , Discovery Research , AbbVie

Accelerate Early-Stage Drug Discovery with a First-of-its-Kind Collaborative Platform

Photo of Vanessa Braunstein, Senior Director, TuneLab AI Drug Discovery Platform, Eli Lilly and Company , Senior Director , TuneLab AI Drug Discovery Platform , Eli Lilly & Co
Vanessa Braunstein, Senior Director, TuneLab AI Drug Discovery Platform, Eli Lilly and Company , Senior Director , TuneLab AI Drug Discovery Platform , Eli Lilly & Co

Lilly TuneLab is a first-of-its-kind collaborative AI/ML drug discovery platform created by Eli Lilly and Company to accelerate biotech innovation by enabling participating companies to access models trained on decades of Lilly’s proprietary research data, representing research on hundreds of thousands of unique molecules. Learn how member companies are using the models in their workflows and contributing data via privacy-preserving federated learning to make the models more generalizable.

Using Antibody Language Models to Reverse-Translate Disease Resilience Into Novel Drugs and Drug Targets

Photo of Jake D. Galson, PhD, Vice President, Technology, Alchemab Therapeutics , VP Technology , Technology , Alchemab Therapeutics
Jake D. Galson, PhD, Vice President, Technology, Alchemab Therapeutics , VP Technology , Technology , Alchemab Therapeutics

Traditional antibody discovery starts with a hypothesised target and hopes it matters in patients. Alchemab inverts this: we start with disease-resilient individuals, and then train language models on their antibody repertoires to find the protective antibodies and deconvolute the targets they recognise. This AI-led process surfaces novel targets and therapeutics in one step and is now validated by a clinical candidate for ALS advancing through Phase 1.

PGAI Keynote

KEYNOTE SESSION

When Proteins Become Code: Generative AI for Programmable Medicines

Photo of Gevorg Grigoryan, PhD, Co-Founder & CTO, Generate Biomedicines , Co-Founder & CTO , Generate: Biomedicines
Gevorg Grigoryan, PhD, Co-Founder & CTO, Generate Biomedicines , Co-Founder & CTO , Generate: Biomedicines
Photo of Samuel Stanton, PhD, Member, Technical Staff, Anthropic, Co-Founder, Coefficient Bio , Member of Technical Staff , Technical Team , Anthropic
Samuel Stanton, PhD, Member, Technical Staff, Anthropic, Co-Founder, Coefficient Bio , Member of Technical Staff , Technical Team , Anthropic

Machine learning models have evolved from specialized prediction tools to general purpose assistants for the entire research lifecycle. LLMs have encyclopedic recall of documented public knowledge and competently execute well-defined mechanical workflows involving specialized tools. Frontier human-AI collaboration has shifted to distilling tacit knowledge, uncovering errors in theories and data, and improving observatory instrumentation. The result is not the complete automation of science, but a more ambitious vision of its future.

IDENTIFYING AND UNLOCKING CHALLENGING TARGETS

Computationally Solubilized Antigens for Functional Antibody Discovery against Membrane-Obligate Targets

Photo of Arvind Sivasubramanian, PhD, Director, Computational Biology & Platform Technologies, Adimab LLC , Dir Computational Biology & Platform Technologies , Computational Biology & Platform Technologies , Adimab LLC
Arvind Sivasubramanian, PhD, Director, Computational Biology & Platform Technologies, Adimab LLC , Dir Computational Biology & Platform Technologies , Computational Biology & Platform Technologies , Adimab LLC

Membrane-Obligate targets (MOTs) require the cell membrane for native protein folding and expression, creating challenges for the discovery and optimization of functional antibody-based therapeutics. Recent advances in the computational design of membrane protein analogs have opened up new approaches in this space. Herein, we discuss discovery and optimization of functional antagonist and agonist antibodies against membrane-obligate targets using computationally solubilized antigens.

Unlocking Challenging Targets: Drug Discovery via Immune Repertoire Analysis

Photo of Yulei Zhang, PhD, Senior Advisor, Eli Lilly and Company , Senior Advisor , Eli Lilly
Yulei Zhang, PhD, Senior Advisor, Eli Lilly and Company , Senior Advisor , Eli Lilly

Antibody discovery against difficult targets is bottlenecked by the throughput of conventional binding-based screens. Exhaustively testing candidate clones is impractical. We developed an antigen-agnostic approach that prioritizes antibodies directly from repertoire sequencing data, without requiring a preliminary binding assay. Across multiple discovery campaigns the method enriched for hits over baseline selection, and enabled discovery against membrane proteins. These results demonstrate that NGS-driven clone prioritization can be applied to antibody discovery.

Leveraging Single-Cell Sequencing to Identify Highly Precise Single and Combination T Cell Engager Targets

Photo of Alexander J. Martinko, PhD, Senior Director, Antibody Engineering & Design, Cartography Biosciences Inc. , Sr. Director, Antibody Engineering , Antibody Engineering & Design , Cartography Biosciences Inc
Alexander J. Martinko, PhD, Senior Director, Antibody Engineering & Design, Cartography Biosciences Inc. , Sr. Director, Antibody Engineering , Antibody Engineering & Design , Cartography Biosciences Inc

T cell engagers (TCEs) hold tremendous promise for solid tumors, but progress remains constrained by the scarcity of targets that combine potency with safety. Cartography’s ATLAS and SUMMIT platforms integrate single-cell RNA sequencing and AI-powered therapeutic design to identify single and paired targets with high tumor selectivity and broad patient coverage, and to build T-cell engagers that exploit those target opportunities. Using this approach, we discovered and advanced CBI-1214, a TCE targeting a highly tumor-restricted colorectal cancer antigen now in the clinic, and are extending the framework to multispecific, AND-gated TCEs that further enhance therapeutic index.

AI-Designed Radiopharmaceuticals: Going after Difficult Targets

Photo of Jake Kraft, PhD, Co Founder & CEO, Lila Biologics, Inc. , Co Founder & CEO , Lila Biologics Inc , Lila Biologics, Inc.
Jake Kraft, PhD, Co Founder & CEO, Lila Biologics, Inc. , Co Founder & CEO , Lila Biologics Inc , Lila Biologics, Inc.

Radioligand therapy (RLT) targets radionuclides to cancer cells to induce DNA damage and cell death. Lila Bio uses AI to design best-in-class de novo minibinder-based RLTs for hard-to-drug targets inaccessible to small molecules or peptides. Its lead program targets avß6 integrin, and a collaboration with Eli Lilly on an undisclosed solid tumor target highlights the strength of its AI-driven design platform to create RLTs with compelling profiles for challenging targets.

AGENTIC AI FOR DRUG DISCOVERY

Robin: A Multi-Agent System for Automating Scientific Discovery

Photo of Samuel Rodriques, CEO, FutureHouse , CEO , FutureHouse
Samuel Rodriques, CEO, FutureHouse , CEO , FutureHouse

Advancing Drug Discovery, Science, and Medicine with Collaborative AI Agents

Photo of Vivek Natarajan, AI Researcher, Google Inc. , AI Researcher , Google Inc
Vivek Natarajan, AI Researcher, Google Inc. , AI Researcher , Google Inc

Biomni: A General-Purpose Biomedical AI Agent

Photo of Kexin Huang, PhD, Co-Founder & CEO, Phylo Inc. , Co Founder & CEO , Phylo Inc
Kexin Huang, PhD, Co-Founder & CEO, Phylo Inc. , Co Founder & CEO , Phylo Inc

Biomedical research is slowed by fragmented workflows. We introduce Biomni, a general-purpose AI agent that autonomously executes research tasks. Its action-discovery agent mines tools, databases, and protocols from thousands of publications across 25 domains, integrating LLM reasoning, retrieval-augmented planning, and code execution to compose workflows. Benchmarks show generalization across gene prioritization, drug repurposing, rare-disease diagnosis, microbiome analysis, and molecular cloning, with studies in multi-modal data, protein design, and lab automation.


For more details on the conference, please contact:

Dan Barry

Senior Conference Director

Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Phone: +44 7837 651 303

Email: dbarry@healthtech.com

 

For sponsorship information, please contact:

 

Companies A-K

Jason Gerardi

Sr. Manager, Business Development

Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Phone: +1 781-972-5452

Email: jgerardi@healthtech.com

 

Companies L-Z

Ashley Parsons

Manager, Business Development

Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Phone: +1 781-972-1340

Email: ashleyparsons@healthtech.com


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