Hosted by the UKRI/BBSRC AI for Drug Discovery Collaborative Training Partnership (AIDD-CTP) PhD programme, the Symposium brought together researchers from across Queen Mary, programme industry partners, and staff and students from other Institutions to hold a captivating day of discussions focusing on AI’s potential to revolutionise the drug discovery process.
Dr Andrew Walker, AIDD-CTP Industry lead and Director of Biological Data Science at Exscientia, presenting at the AIDD-CTP Summer Symposium 2024.
The AIDD-CTP is led by Exscientia, in partnership with Queen Mary, Nxera Pharma, and MSD, and has a focus on employing interdisciplinary AI research to support advancements in drug discovery. Hosted at Queen Mary’s Mile End Campus, the Symposium created a space for researchers, united by their interest in finding quicker, smarter, and more sustainable routes to develop drugs, to come together to share their knowledge and expertise, enabling networking between industry and academic researchers.
The Symposium was opened by Professor Emma Laing, Director of Computational Biology at GSK with a fascinating talk on achievements, challenges and opportunities in target discovery screens. This was followed by talks from current students on the programme which showcased the breadth of research being undertaken within the AIDD-CTP, and the benefits that AI has in drug discovery, including talks on multi-level commonalities between age-related diseases, drug-protein structural modelling, and improving target identification.
The session was closed by a Career Panel focused on demonstrating the varied routes panellists had taken to their current roles, highlighting different career pathways and inspiring achievements to date. The stimulating discussion spilled over into the networking lunch session, which also featured poster presentations from the first-year students.
Dr Andrew Walker, AIDD-CTP Industry lead and Director of Biological Data Science at Exscientia commented: Multi-disciplinary research is at the heart of the AIDD-CTP; the breadth and quality of the talks and conversations at the symposium truly demonstrated the power of bringing different fields together with a shared mission. It was fantastic to see students, academics, and industrial partners come together to share innovative, collaborative applications of data science and AI that are already transforming how we do drug discovery
Professor Conrad Bessant, AIDD-CTP Academic lead, and Professor of Bioinformatics at Queen Mary University of London stated: This is only the second year of the AIDD-CTP, but it is great to already be seeing the inspiring and thought-provoking work that our students are producing. Under the diligent supervision of supervisory teams from industry and academia, these students are on their way to becoming future research leaders. We look forward to next year’s symposium, which will be even bigger and better as we are joined by a further cohort of enthusiastic new PhD students.
The programme is hosted by the Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI), which is focused on interdisciplinary research and brings togethers researchers from across disciplines to tackle global challenges.
The AIDD-CTP programme is currently accepting applications for its third cohort of students, due to start in September 2024. Find out more about the programme and open PhD positions on the AIDD-CTP webpage.