6th NovAliX Conference

The 6th NovAliX Conference – Biophysics in Drug Discovery will take place in Cannes, France on March 20-22, 2019.

The use of biophysical methods in drug discovery is rapidly increasing and the field is in constant evolution, as documented in a recent review: "Biophysics in drug discovery: impact, challenges and opportunities." Renaud J.P., Chung C.W., Danielson U.H., Egner U., Hennig M., Hubbard R.E. & Nar H. (2016) Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 15: 679–698. Many pharmaceutical companies have set up in-house biophysical platforms to speed up the target-to-candidate process and improve the quality of small-molecule therapeutics through a better understanding of their interactions with their targets. Academic labs involved in early-stage drug discovery also heavily rely on biophysical techniques.

The sixth edition of the conference intends again to bring together biophysicists and medicinal chemists, the synergy between their disciplines being key to deliver better drugs on a shorter timeline.

It will cover current hot topics including the complementarity between two major structural biology techniques, X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM, a rapidly evolving field distinguished by the 2017 Chemistry Nobel Prize – see our newest review: "Cryo EM in drug discovery: achievements, limitations and prospects." Renaud J.P., Chari A., Ciferri C., Liu W.T., Rémigy H.W., Stark H. & Wiesmann C. (2018) Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 17: 471–492.

The Scientific Programme will include the following sessions:

• Chemical Biology Meets Biophysics for Drug Discovery
• X-ray Crystallography − Cryo-EM Complementarity
• Enabling Tools for Biophysical and Structural Studies
• MS-based Methods
• Characterisation of Small Molecules Binding to RNA
• Hot Topics

We are extremely honoured to announce that Professor Kurt Wüthrich (The Scripps Reseach Institute, US & ETH Zurich, CH), Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002, has accepted to deliver the keynote lecture!