Ligand Finding and Chemistry Workflows for Targeted Protein Degradation

Industry is currently facing a substantial challenge. There is an increasing need to develop chemical hazard data for both new and existing chemicals, while at the same time there are current and proposed regulatory mandates as well as ethical drivers to reduce, refine, and replace (the “3 R’s”) the use of animal test methods with alternative non-animal methodologies. This creates a challenge for innovators, formulators, and companies who strive to introduce a new chemical or fill data gaps on existing chemicals while adhering to the principles of the 3 R’s. In silico, or computational toxicology software offers an alternative method for predicting chemical hazards. Traditional Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) methodology employs simple analog identification and predicting hazard data from chemical analogs with known hazard data. This webinar will cover the UL Cheminformatics Tool Kit, a novel in silico approach combining big data with advanced machine learning incorporating data fusion. The approach integrates novel models called RASARs (Read-across Structure Activity Relationship) with data fusion techniques that extend this concept by considering all available property data on both the target and analogs rather than only the modeled hazard.

Liquid crystal elastomers are rubbery solids with liquid crystal mesogens incorporated into their main chains. They display an isotropic to nematic phase transformation accompanied by a large spontaneous deformation. This in turn leads to rich variety of phenomena including ultra-soft behavior, stripe domains, shape-morphing etc.

Despite the promise of target-based drug discovery ushered in by the genomics era, no mechanistically novel rationally designed antibiotic has reached clinically utility to address the threat of multi-drug resistant bacterial pathogens. Phenotypic screening remains the primary source for new antibacterial compounds, which mainly come from mining various chemical libraries. In this webinar, Carl Balibar (Merck Research Laboratories) will discuss screen design, target bias, and hit-prioritization strategies to identify those entities with the greatest opportunity to be developed into the next new antibiotic.

FTIR spectroscopy is a powerful technique for studying the effects of polymer formulation and process factors on surface chemistry, component compatibility, and morphology; all of which relate to end-use performance characteristics like adhesion and mechanical properties.