We will be celebrating our first 50 years throughout 2020. Keep your eyes on MedChemWatch, our social media outlets and events for further news. However, in the meantime, we are proud to unveil our new logo:

Who can apply?

• European PhD students (and up to one year after PhD)

Review Criteria

• CV
• Abstract of the poster to be presented at the EFMC-ISMC 2020 & EFMC-YMCS 2020
• List of publications
• Cover letter: « Why is my research worth the Prize »

How to apply?

• Via the online form

Deadline for submission: January 31, 2020

The winner will be announced during the month of April.

EFMC Grants are available for the following events:

• 16th EFMC Short Course on Medicinal Chemistry - New Opportunities in GPCR Drug Discovery
   May 17-20, 2020 - Oegstgeest, The Netherlands
   Deadline for application: March 1, 2020

• XXVI EFMC International Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC-ISMC 2020)
   September 6-10, 2020 - Basel, Switzerland
   Deadline for application: April 2, 2020

• 7th EFMC Young Medicinal Chemist Symposium (EFMC-YMCS 2020)
   September 10-11, 2020 - Basel, Switzerland
   Combined with the grant application of EFMC-ISMC 2020
   (Participation to both events is required)

Important remark: A grant application does not automatically register you to the conference. If your grant application is accepted, you will have to register to the conference, and submit your abstract again. If you wish to be considered for an Oral Communication at the EFMC-ISMC, you will have to register to the conference before April 2. In case your grant application is refused, free cancelation will be allowed.

How did you get interested in Medicinal Chemistry?
I was always attracted to applicable chemistry that can positively affect the lives of many. During my whole training the medicinal potential of my research was constantly motivating me to further explore and investigate.

Where and when did you obtain your PhD diploma?
I graduated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2015.

What was the topic of your PhD project?
Mimetic Peptides of Copper Metallochaperones: Structural Characterization and Potential Treatment for Copper Homeostasis Disorders.

Where did you have your postdoc position?
At the lab of Prof. Dr. Helma Wennemers at ETH Zurich.

Where do you work at the moment and what is your current position?
I am an independent group leader at the University of Zurich.

What are your current research interests?
Selective detoxification of various toxins including metals, peptides and small molecules.

What do you like most in your job?
Coming up with new research ideas, designing experiments and potential molecules, mentoring students.

What kind of tasks your job includes?
Managing research projects of BSc, MSc and PhD students, papers and research proposals writing, teaching.

What kind of skills your job requires?
Creativity, management skills, analytical skills.

What do you consider your biggest achievement in your scientific career?
Opening my independent group that is being supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

What are the features of a successful PhD student or postdoc?
Diligence, independence, creativity, consistency.

How would you describe yourself as a supervisor?
I care about the progress of my students and try to push them as much as I can for success. I encourage them for an independent thinking. I believe that a student that knows the bigger picture is more motivated to accomplish her/his goals and therefore I constantly share with my students the primary goals and future directions so they could choose where to take their projects to.

What is the most embarrassing thing you did in the lab while doing experiments?
I drained a GPC column that is extremely expensive but I was lucky that my colleague could save it...

Which scientist do you admire the most and why?
I admire scientists that are shiny with their brilliant and creative minds, and moreover, the ones that are modest regarding their outstanding achievements, for example Jorn Piel from ETH and Luisa de Cola from the University of Strasbourg.

Did you experience any unfair situations during your scientific career?
I guess there were situations that could have been unfair but I try not to think about the things I didn’t get (and why) and focus and appreciate the things I accomplished.

Which paper of yours you are the proudest of and why?
My last paper at Angew. Chemie (2019) since it was a project that I designed from scratch and saw it evolving step-by-step. It was a pleasure to deal with the challenges of each of these steps and to finally have this incredible outcome.

Which field of medicinal chemistry do you consider the most promising in the future?
I think that peptides as pharmaceuticals still didn’t show us their whole potential. And although the number of peptide-based drugs is constantly raising, I think that many more of them can be developed and replace either proteins or small molecules.

What would you guess to be the next major breakthrough in medicinal chemistry?
Personalized therapy based on machine learning.

G-protein coupled receptors represent the largest class of drug targets. Although they serve as targets for about 30% of the known drugs, many of them is still orphan. In the last 15 years, however, we witnessed dramatic developments in the structural biology and pharmacology of GPCRs. High resolution X-ray and cryo-EM structures made the design of the GPCR ligands more rational. The widening knowledge on their signalling resulted in new concepts such as allosteric modulation, GPCR residence time and biased signalling currently tested in clinical trials. This course will provide an introduction for medicinal chemists to this important target class including concepts and methods applied in the structural biology, modelling, systems biology, pharmacology and medicinal chemistry of GPCRs. The course will finish with a series of medicinal chemistry case studies, including the discovery of molecular probes, tool compounds, clinical candidates and marketed drugs.

Course Organisers
György Miklós KESERÜ (Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary)
Rob LEURS (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Local Organisers
Henk TIMMERMAN (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Laura HEITMAN (University of Leiden, The Netherlands)

Register now! - Places are limited.

The EFMC session on “Cancer and checkpoint inhibitors” was well received. The talks from Murali Ramachandra (Aurigene), Maria Duca (Uni Nice-Côte d’Azur), Dhanalakshmi Sivanandhan (Jubilant) and Pradip Nair (Biocon) were well attended and very interesting and of a good quality.

The EFMC thanks all the speakers, and particularly Dr Edmond Differding for his help in putting the programme together.

The aim of this international event is to learn more about the latest advances in the field of chemical biology and to foster an open and dynamic dialogue amongst the scientists conducting this exciting research.

Registration deadline is 16th December 2019.

Fee waiver/travel grant fellowships are available. The event will also include a Poster & Young researcher prize session.

Full details can be found on the symposium website: http://symposium.nccr-chembio.ch/

The international symposium will focus on current developments, novel approaches and cutting-edge technologies in the field of medicinal chemistry and drug research with sessions on Chemical Proteomics – Activity based Protein Profiling, Macrocyclic and Covalent Inhibitors, Young Investigators, Novel Computational Methods, Epigenetics, and Highlights in Medicinal Chemistry and Case Studies. The scientific program will include lectures and poster presentations. It is the goal of the organizers to make this meeting an event of scientific excellence, attractive to both industrial and academic scientists in Medicinal Chemistry, Chemical Biology, and related fields of research. The Frontiers of Medicinal Chemistry Conference is followed by the 3rd Chemical Epigenetics Meeting, March 25-27, 2020.

More information: https://veranstaltungen.gdch.de
                             www.chemepi.org

Many prestigious prizes will be attributed (SCT, ACS, EFMC, MDPI) for best oral communications, and posters.

CONFIRMED PLENARY LECTURES

• Andrew Sutherland (University of Glasgow, Scotland)
• Michael Decker (University of Wurzburg, Germany)
• Sandrine Ongeri (BioCIS, Université Paris Sud, France)
• Sophie Faure (ICCF, Université Clermont Auvergne, France)
• Ludovic Jean (COBRA, Université de Rouen Normandie, France)

Awards: The best oral communications/posters will receive an award allowing young scientists in attending international meetings.

Individual career sessions: Individual one-hour meetings will be organized with representatives of human resource managers from major pharmaceutical firms as well as from start-ups (simulated job interviews, recommendations to present appropriately CV...).

Registration fees: 50 euros - Low cost rooms (50 euros for 2 nights) are also available.

All information on: http://www.sct-asso.fr/yrfm.html

ANGLO-SWISS SYMPOSIUM: USING CHEMICAL BIOLOGY TO IDENTIFY NEW TARGETS FOR MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY
4th February 2020, PharmaCenter, Basel, Switzerland
The call for poster abstracts will close 13th January 2020
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/41974/2nd-anglo-swiss-symposium-2020-using-chemical-biology-to-identify-new-targets-for-medicinal-chemistry

Synopsis: Experts in chemical biology and medicinal chemistry come to the scientific hub of Basel for a symposium featuring 8 speakers and a poster session. Exciting science is promised, as well as great networking opportunities.

2nd RSC/SCI APPLIED LATE STAGE FUNCTIONALISATION SYMPOSIUM
18th to 19th February 2020, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/41281/applied-late-stage-functionalisation-where-chemistry-meets-biology

Synopsis: The meeting will highlight some of the hot and emerging developments in the inorganic catalysis and biocatalysis arenas and both the academic and application of late-stage functionalisation methodologies.

6th RSC/SCI SYMPOSIUM ON ION CHANNELS AS THERAPEUTIC TARGETS
24th to 25th February 2020, Wellcome Genome Campus Conference Centre, Cambridge, UK
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/36598/6th-ion-channels-as-therapeutic-targets

Synopsis: The symposium will showcase the most recent advances in ion channel science and promote scientific interaction between scientists with a shared interest in the field of ion channel drug discovery. The conference will be organised around series of plenary lectures delivered by international leaders in ion channels science and drug discovery from academia and industry

1st RSC BMCS SYNTHESIS IN DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT SYMPOSIUM
27th March 2020, Eli Lilly, Windlesham, Surrey, UK
The call for poster abstracts will close on 30th January 2020
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/39710/synthesis-in-drug-discovery-and-development

Synopsis: This symposium aims to highlight and celebrate the crucial role which synthetic organic chemistry plays in the success of small molecule drug discovery. The three main themes of the symposium will be:
• Innovative synthesis facilitating candidate discovery
• Novel bioisosteres and methodology applicable to drug discovery
• Overcoming challenges of scale-up and process scale chemistry

31st SYMPOSIUM ON MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY IN EASTERN ENGLAND
30th April 2020, Hatfield, UK
The call for abstracts will close on 20th December 2019
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/41288/31st-symposium-on-medicinal-chemistry-in-eastern-england

Synopsis: The Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry in Eastern England, known colloquially as the "Hatfield MedChem" meeting, is a highly successful, long-standing, one-day meeting which runs annually. The scientific program will comprise presentations showcasing medicinal chemistry case studies from tools to candidates, across a range of modalities, therapeutic areas and target classes, as well as covering more general topics from the forefront of drug discovery of relevance to medicinal chemists. The meeting aims to be informal and interactive and the event will offer excellent scientific and networking opportunities for all those working in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery.

5th RSC / DMDG / DMG NEW PERSPECTIVES IN DMPK
5th to 6th May 2020, Liverpool, UK
The call for abstracts for Oral presentation will close on 20th December 2019
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/41326/5th-rsc-dmdg-dmg-new-perspectives-in-dmpk

Synopsis: Members from across the DMPK research community are encouraged to join colleagues from across academic, industrial, and third-sector institutions and contribute to the ongoing discussion, evolution and application of DMPK in various scenarios.
The event programme will incorporate sessions themed around the following key topics:
- DMPK and Drug Discovery
- DMPK and Drug Safety
- Analytical and Computational Advances in DMPK
In addition, the programme also includes a keynote talk, ‘flash’ presentations from early career researchers, and opportunities for open debate and discussion.

KINASE 2020: 9th RSC / SCI SYMPOSIUM ON KINASE INHIBITOR DESIGN
1st to 2nd June 2020, London, UK
The call for abstracts for Oral presentation will close on 18th December 2019
Website: http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/40755/kinase-2020-9th-rsc-sci-symposium-on-kinase-inhibitor-design

Synopsis: With more than 49 FDA-approved small molecules, the field of kinase inhibition continues to attract significant investment from the drug discovery and development community. The 9th RSC/SCI symposium on kinases will encompass plenary lectures on emergent topics and case studies of ongoing programmes as well as successful past programmes. A range of topics including new screening approaches, brain penetrant kinase inhibitors, induced protein degradation, allosteric inhibitors and kinase inhibition for immuno-oncology will be covered, along with views and perspectives on the future of kinase inhibitor research.