As in previous years, the teaching content is targeted at young scientists working in the area of medicinal chemistry, but also from flanking disciplines such as biochemistry, pharmacy, pharmacology, or biophysics from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Given the broad spectrum and the timeliness of scientific topics discussed, the course also provides a valuable opportunity for advanced medicinal chemists to get acquainted with most recent developments in e.g. the medicinal chemistry of novel target families, novel compound classes, and most modern optimization paradigms. In addition, a number of PhD students and postdocs are able to attend to receive a broad overview on scientific disciplines involved in modern drug discovery. The event is thematically structured along key topics of strategic relevance for medicinal chemistry that will be presented by opinion leaders in the field. The teaching content is further intensified by hands-on tutorials in which the theoretical learning’s can immediately be applied to real life problems of pre-clinical drug discovery.

The mission of the ESMEC is to provide participants, PhD students and junior researchers from both academia and industry, with the most recent advances in the field of medicinal and organic chemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology and analytical/ structural chemistry. This idea is aimed to reflect the current scenario of medicinal chemistry being a truly transdisciplinary approach, where the advances in knowledge are driven by the medicinal chemist’s ability to translate into new molecular concepts and into novel molecular entities the amount of information created by molecular medicine, pharmacology, molecular biology, systems biology. For these reasons, the School is directed to participants at a graduated and post-graduated level, in chemistry but also in pharmacology or biology, who are keen to explore the interdisciplinary context of current cutting-edge research in medicinal chemistry. To achieve these very ambitious goals, the School is organized into thematic sessions, each of them constructed around a series of lectures, followed by practical workshops.

The Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT), a member of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC), in collaboration with Lilly, is pleased to announce the X SEQT Summer School, “Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology in Drug Discovery: The Pharma Perspective,” to be held on July 1–3, 2026, at the Lilly campus in Alcobendas, Spain.

The Organizing Committee invites you to attend this meeting, which will provide a forum for scientific exchange and will foster interaction between the pharmaceutical industry and early-career researchers, including graduate students and postdoctoral associates in medicinal chemistry and health sciences areas.

Over three days, participants will review current advances in drug discovery and gain insight into the pharmaceutical development process. To support these discussions, all participants are required to present a poster and deliver a flash communication (a two-minute, one-slide presentation highlighting key results).

The scientific program will include workshops led by speakers from pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Attendance is limited to facilitate discussion; early registration is therefore recommended.

Important Dates

• Early Bird Registration: May 20th, 2026
• Abstract submission: May 30th, 2026

SEQT offers several scholarships for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to support attendance. Details are available at: https://www.seqt.org/en/calls/grants

Welcome to the Summer School on Pharmaceutical Analysis!

Over the last two decades, groundbreaking therapeutic approaches and drug modalities have transformed the healthcare landscape. However, advanced therapies still grapple with significant analytical challenges.

As new drug products come to life, their accompanying analytical methods must advance in tandem to guarantee that these products meet stringent quality standards. If these standards are not upheld, the effectiveness of the therapy may be compromised, potentially leading to toxic and adverse reactions that jeopardize patient safety and squander valuable financial resources.

The 2025 edition of the Summer School on Pharmaceutical Analysis is poised to tackle these pressing analytical challenges linked to cutting-edge therapies. Specifically, this year's edition, titled "New therapeutic approaches, new analytical challenges: nucleic acid- and cell-based therapies" focuses on the analytics to ensure safe, consistent, and high-quality therapeutic DNA- and cell-based products are achieved.

SSPA2025 allows you to learn from recognized experts from academia and industry who will share invaluable insights throughout the program.

Plus, our planned social activities are tailored to foster networking and interactions between participants and lecturers, making this event even more enriching.

Due to these interactive elements, attendance is capped at just 80 participants.

We are dedicated to making this event a remarkable opportunity for you to boost your scientific competitiveness while enjoying a warm and dynamic experience.

Join us in Rimini to broaden your understanding of advanced pharmaceutical analysis and its application to innovative therapeutic avenues!

Manuela Bartolini
Chair of SSPA
Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna

The MedChem Campus is organized jointly by Tübingen Center for Academic Drug Discovery (TüCAD₂) and the Division of Medicinal Chemistry, German Chemical Society (GDCh) and is an “EFMC Certified School“ by the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry.

Case studies dealing with challenges in drug discovery will be presented by drug discovery experts from both industry and academia and will touch topics such as use of structural biology, target protein degradation, kinase inhibition, macrocycles, optimization of pharmacokinetics etc.

 

Target Audience:

- Young professionals in drug discovery & medicinal chemistry (academia and industry)

- Post docs and graduate students

 

Confirmed Speakers:

 

Dr. Wilhelm Amberg, AbbVie (Ludwigshafen, Germany)

Dr. Dean Brown, Jnana Therap. (Boston, USA)

Dr. Werngard Czechtizky, AstraZeneca (Gothenburg, Sweden)

Dr. Stefanie Flohr, Novartis (Basel, Switzerland)

Dr. Markus Follmann, Bayer (Leverkusen, Germany)

Dr. Matthias Hoffmann, Boehringer Ingelheim (Biberach, Germany)

Prof. Gerhard Klebe, Univ. Marburg (Marburg, Germany)

Dr. Maria Mendez Perez, Sanofi (Frankfurt, Germany)

Dr. Gerhard Müller, SpiroChem (Basel, Switzerland)

Dr. Franz von Nussbaum, Nuvisan (Berlin, Germany)

Dr. Andrea Unzue Lopez, Merck (Darmstadt, Germany)

Prof. Matthias Wymann, Univ. Basel (Basel, Switzerland)

The summer school especially focuses on students and professionals who have a clear interest in learning the basics as well as latest developments in Pharmacoinformatics. The program provides an overview on main approaches and techniques used in computational drug design, ranging from protein modeling, docking, pharmacophore based screening, up to machine learning and data science. During the afternoon sessions the participants will have the opportunity to obtain hands-on training via computational exercises.

This Summer School will provide a forum for scientific discussions with the aim of approaching the pharma industry to young researchers, both graduate students and post-doctoral associates working in the chemistry and health sciences related fields. For three days, the participants will have the opportunity to explore cutting-edge research in drug discovery while gaining a full understanding of the pharmaceutical development process. To foster these discussions, all participants will be required to present a poster and flash communication. The scientific program includes several workshops covered by speakers from different pharmaceutical and biotech companies

The Medicinal Chemistry Division of the Società Chimica Italiana is organizing, with the support of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC), the 44th Edition of the European School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC 2025), an EFMC Certified School. The ESMEC is addressed to PhD students and young researchers from both Academia and Industry, with the aim of covering hot topics and new methodologies in medicinal chemistry. To achieve these very ambitious goals, the School is divided into thematic sessions.

The Swiss Summer Schools are multi-day out-of-town EFMC Certified Schools for students (MSc, PhD & post-doc level) and senior researchers with a strong interest in the fields of chemical biology or organic synthesis.

They offer a great platform for the exchange with experts and peers from academia and industry in a wonderful Alpine environment. The students are welcome to actively involve themselves in the programme by presenting a poster or a short communication.

Lecturers:

• Prof. Paola Arimondo
  Institut Pasteur, FR
• Prof. Stefan Arold
  King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, SA
• Dr Guido Koch
  Amphilix, SynpleChem, eMolecules, CH
• Prof. Anna Mapp
  University of Michigan, USA
• Prof. Brian Paegel
  University of California, Irvine, USA
• Prof. Ben Schumann
  Imperial College London, UK
• Prof. Dirk Trauner
  University of Pennsylvania, USA

Register and Submit your abstract!

Deadlines:

• Deadline for registration: June 30, 2024
• Notification of acceptance with type of contribution (poster, oral communication) : July 22, 2024

Contact: 
Conference Secretariat
Phone: +41 31 306 92 92
Mail: info@scg.ch

The mission of the ESMEC is to provide participants, PhD students and junior researchers from both academia and industry, with the most recent advances in the field of medicinal and organic chemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology and analytical/ structural chemistry. This idea is aimed to reflect the current scenario of medicinal chemistry being a truly transdisciplinary approach, where the advances in knowledge are driven by the medicinal chemist’s ability to translate into new molecular concepts and into novel molecular entities the amount of information created by molecular medicine, pharmacology, molecular biology, systems biology.

For these reasons, the School is directed to participants at a graduated and post-graduated level, in chemistry but also in pharmacology or biology, who are keen to explore the interdisciplinary context of current cutting-edge research in medicinal chemistry.

To achieve these very ambitious goals, the School is organized into thematic sessions, each of them constructed around a series of lectures, followed by practical workshops.

This Year the Scientific Programme includes the following topics:

• Make it Unbreakable! Covalent Approach in Drug Discovery
• Click-and-Tag: How Bioorthogonal Chemistry is Transforming Drug Discovery
• Unusual Elements and Functional Groups Shaping the Future of Medicinal Chemistry
• Market Watch: New Drug Approval in 2023 and Synthetic Strategies

The summer school especially focuses on students and professionals who have a clear interest in learning the basics as well as latest developments in Pharmacoinformatics. The program provides an overview on main approaches and techniques used in computational drug design, ranging from protein modeling, docking, pharmacophore based screening, up to machine learning, data science, and workflows. During the afternoon sessions the participants will have the opportunity to obtain hands-on training via computational exercises.

Please, find the programme here.

Topics Coverage:

• Structure-based Design & Molecular Dynamics Simulations
• Machine Learning & Deep Learning in Drug Design
• Pharmacophore Modeling
• in silico Toxicology
• Open Data, Open Tools, Open Knowledge
• Case Studies from Industry

Registration conditions:

The registration fee includes access to all lectures and practical exercises (workshops), copy of all material, coffee breaks and beverages. For a reduced fee it is possible to attend only the morning sessions (only lectures – no workshops).

Registrations fees (Early Bird):

• 550€ for full participation
• 300€ for students

A discount of € 50 is applicable for EFMC members (both categories).

 

Deadlines

• Early Bird Fees: June 30, 2023
• Poster abstract submission: July 31, 2023

Students who submit an abstract, present a poster or a short talk, and provide a short assay how the summer school contributed to their thesis will receive 4 ECTS credits.

Contact: summerschool@europin.at

The Medicinal Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society is organizing, with the support of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC), the 42nd Edition of the European School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC 2023), an EFMC Certified School.

The ESMEC is addressed to PhD students and young researchers from both Academia and Industry, with the aim of covering hot topics and new methodologies in medicinal chemistry. To achieve these very ambitious goals, the School is divided into thematic sessions.

The scientific programme includes the following topics:

• Pharmacomicrobiomics: the complex world of drug-microbiome interactions
• Artificial Intelligence-based retrosynthesis
• Mechanochemistry: A Sustainable Tool to Navigate the Uncharted Chemical Space
• Preventing the turn! Atropisomerism in drug discovery
• Market Watch: New Drug Approval in 2022 and Synthetic Strategies

Deadlines

• ESMEC Fellowships: May 31
• ESMEC Alumni Award: May 31
• Registration and Abstract Submission: June 11

Contact: lucia.bedini@uniurb.it

The Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT), member of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC), and GalChimia are organizing the VIII SEQT Summer School “Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology in Drug Discovery: the Pharma Perspective” to be held on June 19-21 2023 in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, with the aim of approaching the Industry to young researchers, both graduate students and post-doctoral associates working in medicinal chemistry, biological chemistry and health sciences related fields.

On behalf of the organizing committee, we would like to personally invite you to participate in the meeting, which will provide a forum for scientific discussions with the aim of approaching the pharma industry to young researchers, both graduate students and post-doctoral associates working in the chemistry and health sciences related fields. During three days, the participants will have the opportunity to learn about the latest research trends in pharmaceutical drug discovery and development.

Deadlines:

• Early Bird Registration: From March 20th until May 16th
• Abstract submission: From March 20th until June 5th

This five-day Medicinal Chemistry School that is organized by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology of the Swiss Chemical Society will focus on most modern aspects associated with small molecule drug discovery, highlighting the methodologies and technologies supporting hit generation, lead finding and lead optimization campaigns.

In the beautiful and scenic village of Leysin, close to Lake Geneva, more than 100 young scientists are expected to meet with app. 35 international renowned expert speakers and instructors.

As in previous years, the teaching content will be targeted at young scientists working in the area of medicinal chemistry, but also from flanking disciplines such as biochemistry, pharmacy, pharmacology, or biophysics from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Given the broad spectrum and the timeliness of scientific topics discussed, the course also provides a valuable opportunity for advanced medicinal chemists to get acquainted with most recent developments in e.g. the medicinal chemistry of novel target families, novel compound classes, and most modern optimization paradigms. In addition, a number of PhD students and postdocs will be able to attend to receive a broad overview on scientific disciplines involved in modern drug discovery.

The upcoming event will thematically be structured along key topics of strategic relevance for medicinal chemistry that will be presented by opinion leaders in the field. The teaching content will further be intensified by hands-on tutorials in which the theoretical learning’s can immediately be applied to real life problems of pre-clinical drug discovery.

CONTACT:

• Dr. Kasia Borsuk
  scmc@scg.ch
• SCS Head Office
  info@scg.ch
  +41 31 306 92 92

The SEQT Summer School is organized by the Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT) and a company (Pharma, CRO…) with the aim of approaching the Industry to young researchers, both graduate students and post-doctoral associates working in medicinal chemistry, biological chemistry and health sciences related fields.

 

Registration deadline: June 15, 2022

Registration fees: 

• 350 euros (SEQT/EFMC members)
• 400 euros (non members)

Practical information: 

• Registration: Link
• Contact: SEQT Secretariat seqt-summerschool@iqm.csic.es

The Medicinal Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society is organizing, with the support of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC), the 41^st Edition of the European School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC 2022), an EFMC Certified School.

The ESMEC is addressed to PhD students and young researchers from both Academia and Industry, with the aim of covering hot topics and new methodologies in medicinal chemistry. To achieve these very ambitious goals, the School is divided into thematic sessions.

This year the scientific programme includes the following topics:

• New modalities for targeting challenging proteins
• Virtual Reality in Medicinal Chemistry
• Electrochemistry in drug discovery
• Rare diseases and orphan drugs
• Market Watch: New Drug Approval in 2021 and Synthetic Strategies

Registration at www.esmec.eu

ESMEC Alumni Award 

The ESMEC Alumni Award will be given to an outstanding European researcher in the field of Medicinal Chemistry who has participated in the school either as an oral or poster presenter.

The prize consists of a diploma, a Trophy and an invitation to give a presentation at ESMEC 2022.

Applicants are invited to fill in the enclosed form and to send the CV and a Proof of Participation with an oral or poster communication (ESMEC Certificate of Participation and/or Abstract presented) by e-mail, stating in the subject box “ESMEC Alumni Award” within May 23, 2022 to both:

Prof. Marco Macchia
e-mail: marco.macchia@unipi.it  

Dr. Lucia Bedini
e-mail: lucia.bedini@uniurb.it

PhD Students Scholarship

The European School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC) and the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC) offer scholarships for the participation to the 41^st edition of the school.

The scholarships, covering the registration fee and the full board accommodation, will be assigned to PhD students attending PhD courses in European Universities (excluding Italian Universities).

A Committee formed by members of the School’s Scientific Committee, Dr Antoni Torrens (representative of EFMC), Prof. Tracey Pirali and Prof. Marco Macchia, will carry out the selection on the basis of the candidate scientific CV and research project.

Applicants are invited to fill in the enclosed form and to send the CV, a motivation letter and the abstract of the research project, by e-mail, stating in the subject box “ESMEC Grant Application”, within May 23, 2022 to both:

Prof. Marco Macchia
e-mail: marco.macchia@unipi.it  

Dr. Lucia Bedini
e-mail: lucia.bedini@uniurb.it