Division/Committee: [COMP: Division of Computers in Chemistry]

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have emerged as an increasingly important therapeutic modality in oncology, as demonstrated by the FDAs approval of 11 ADC drugs, including 4 in the last 3 years and over 100 ADC candidates in clinical trials. Despite recent progresses, numerous challenges remain in developing safe and effective ADCs. An ADC drug consists of three integral components an antibody, a stabilizing linker, and a therapeutic payload that function in a coordinated manner. Each component plays a crucial role in the final ADC drugs safety and efficacy. Significant advances have been made in the understanding of ADC mechanism of action and safety, informing the design of each of those components. We believe computational modeling offer promising solutions to many of the design challenges. This symposium aims to facilitate discussions on key design principles for developing efficacious and safe ADCs, showcase successful examples where computational modeling has yielded impactful results, and address key challenges in advancing next generation ADCs with novel payloads, such as immune-stimulators and protein degraders. We anticipate the proposed half-day session will attract diverse speakers and audiences, including computational chemists, cheminformaticians, medicinal chemists, drug safety experts and other stakeholders involved in ADC research and development. The symposium holds the promise to enrich the understanding and advancement of ADC computational modeling, drawing more attention from the computational chemistry community to this important, rising therapeutic modality.

Dr. Binqing Wei

Senior Scientist, Genentech

Appearances