Our Mission
The mission of the medicinal chemistry group is to advance knowledge and understanding of drug discovery research by organizing world class quality symposia.
Our meetings provide our attendees with access to top quality science presenters and offer unique networking connectivity with thought leaders in the scientific community.
Our members work at the forefront of the life science sector and are constantly striving to bring new medicines and therapies forward to the clinic to meet unmet need.
Annual Advances in Chemical Sciences Symposium
Every year, the MedChem Group organizes the Annual Advances in Chemical Sciences Symposium, a day-long symposium focused on Medicinal Chemistry, Organic Synthesis, and Methodology, featuring eminent scientists from industry and academia. To learn more about this year’s conference, please go to our dedicated website: https://nemedchem.org/conference/.
Volunteer Opportunities
The Medicinal chemistry group will be interested in volunteers to assist with annual symposium specifically for contacting potential vendors and fund-raising efforts. Please contact the med chem chair, Raj Rajur at rrajur@creagenbio.com, if interested.
Who We Are
Brian Aquila
Alkermes
Mark Ashwell
Nimbus Therapeutics
Sara Buhrlage
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School
Yun Ding
GSK
Scott Edmondson
Nimbus Therapeutics
Pether H. Fuller
Merck
Paul Greenspan
Takeda
Adrian Hobson
Abbvie
Michelle Lamb
AstraZeneca
Blaise Lippa
Morphic Therapeutic
Lauren Monovich
Novartis
Andrew Scholte
Sanofi
Paul Scola
BMS
Medicinal Chemistry Webinar Series for the Year 2020
By Paul Greenspan, Takeda Oncology Cambridge, Cambridge, MA 02139
Last winter (which seems like a lifetime ago), the NESACS medicinal chemistry seminar committee was putting the final touches on preparations for our annual “Advances in Chemical Sciences” symposium, which was scheduled for May 2020. When March rolled around, however, everything changed. It became apparent that the COVID-19 pandemic would make it impossible to hold a large indoor event in the intended time frame. We initially considered delaying until later in the year, but it soon became clear that there was just too much uncertainty to give us a high level of confidence in our ability to stage the symposium even in late 2020. (Subsequent events, as we all know, have validated our concerns!)
Despite our disappointment, the committee was determined to find a way to bring high-quality presentations to the local medicinal and organic chemistry community. We quickly settled on a monthly webinar series, with one seminar for each session. Rather than charging for attendance, we’d do it for free! We chose to hold each seminar on the 2nd Thursday of the month, at 4 pm.
We were thrilled when Derek Lowe (Novartis) agreed to be our very first speaker. Derek’s long-running “In the Pipeline” blog has become required reading for anyone looking for in-depth yet highly accessible analysis of the latest scientific COVID news. Derek’s presentation on September 10th, entitled “Coronavirus Therapies: What’s Probably Coming, and What Probably Isn’t”, did not disappoint. He provided an outstanding high-level overview of the current state of the COVID-19 treatment and vaccine landscape, which concluded with a robust Q+A which lasted for over 30 minutes! And perhaps best of all, we had no technical issues!! (Special thanks go to Casi Leal from Sanofi, for her support and guidance on the optimal use of the Zoom webinar platform.)
Our second seminar speaker, on October 8th, was Rebecca Ruck (Merck), who presented “Enabling Technologies for the Development of Best Process.” She highlighted how her teams were able to generate efficient and green process chemistry synthesis routes for 3 key compounds in Merck’s development pipeline. She incorporated scientific successes in hot areas like biocatalysis, traditional catalysis, and flow chemistry and showed how Merck thinks about both cost-of-goods as well as environmental sustainability.
For our 3rd webinar, Atwood Cheung (Novartis) presented the medicinal chemistry story behind the identification of Icenticaftor, a novel potentiator of the cystic fibrosis CFTR Channel, with a focus on its use as a treatment for COPD.
Most recently, Nathan Fuller from Alkermes described his team’s success in identification of selective dual HDAC 1/2 inhibitors. A fascinating aspect of the presentation was the ability of the highlighted compounds to inhibit the HDAC’s only in the context of the CoREST complex, which distinguishes these compounds from other known HDAC inhibitors.
The series has now hit its stride, and we have an exciting series of diverse webinars planned through next spring. Planned speakers are Brian Lanman from Amgen (January 21st), Ed Ha from Angiex (February 11th), Sara Buhrlage from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (March 11th), and Matthew Clark from X-Chem (May 13th).
As rewarding and successful as thiswebinar series has been, the committee has its attention focused on a return to an in-person symposium in the coming year. We have now targeted Nov. 5th, 2021 for our 10th annual “Advances in Chemical Sciences” symposium, (hopefully sufficient time for vaccination and herd immunity to take hold), and we’re in the process of building an outstanding lineup of speakers, to make up for our lost opportunity in 2020. We are looking forward to seeing everyone in person next year for what will be a truly momentous event! Until then, keep checking this page for more details about the ongoing webinar series?
MedChem Webinar June 16, 2022
MedChem Webinar May 19, 2022
MedChem Webinar April 21, 2022
MedChem Webinar March 17, 2022
MedChem meeting – Feb 2022
