Driving Exploration of 3D Protein Structures to Unlock Hard-to-Drug Targets

The 2nd Structure-Based Drug Design Summit San Diego arrives at a pivotal moment for the field as AI-driven structure prediction and de novo design tools move rapidly from proof-of-concept into practical application, reshaping how structural biologists approach drug discovery. Following major investment surges into AI-enabled drug design platforms, including Isomorphic Labs' $2.1B Series B, and mounting pressure to de-risk pipelines earlier amid tightening budgets, the focus has shifted from whether to use AI to how to integrate it most effectively alongside experimental structural biology.

As the industry's only West Coast-dedicated meeting focused exclusively on structure-based drug design, this summit brings together 60+ structural biologists, computational and medicinal chemists, and drug discovery leaders across pharma, biotech, and academia to tackle the field's most pressing technical bottlenecks. Discussions will explore how to characterize increasingly complex and previously "undruggable" targets, membrane proteins, GPCRs, and multi-protein complexes, integrate cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography, NMR, and AI into unified workflows, understand protein dynamics beyond static structures, and extend SBDD principles across modalities including biologics, peptides, molecular glues, and protein degraders.

With a dedicated pre-conference workshop day, case study-driven presentations from West Coast leaders at companies including Gilead, Vertex, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, and Novartis, and extensive networking including speed networking, panel discussions, and roundtable feedback sessions, this is the must-attend forum to benchmark strategies, build cross-functional partnerships, and translate high-resolution structural insight into higher-quality, developable drug candidates faster and more efficiently.