Webinar
Title: “From Chip to Clinic: Computationally-driven design of a small molecule STING agonist”
By Woody Sherman
Organized by the Medicinal Chemistry Section
of the Northeastern Section, American Chemical Society (NESACS)
Thursday – February 17th, 2022
4.00 pm
Register for the February Webinar meeting at:
https://american-chemical-society.zoom.com/webinar/register/WN_s7voZqjFTVWVqtUc90lD9g
Abstract: The STING protein induces type I interferon (IFN) production upon activation by abhorrent DNA from pathogens or tumors. Here, we describe the rational design of a novel small molecule STING agonist with favorable drug-like properties that shows a robust in vivo anti-tumor response. To account for the unique dimerization binding mechanism of action, bespoke computational methods were developed (QM, MD, and AI/ML). The clinical compound (SNX281) was engineered by computationally exploring millions of virtual molecules but synthesizing only 200 small molecules in the lab.
Biography: Woody Sherman is Chief Computational Scientist at Roivant Sciences, where he oversees the computational strategy, implementation, and deployment of computational methods in drug discovery projects. He completed his Ph.D. at MIT working in Professor Bruce Tidor’s lab. Then, as Global Head of Applications Science at Schrödinger, he led research, product development, and methods development. Woody has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers on a broad range of computational drug discovery topics.
