The European School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC) is organized yearly by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society and is one of the three European Schools which are officially recognized and supported by the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC).
Also this year, for its 27th edition, the School will take place in Urbino, a lovely Renaissance city in the center of Italy, from July the 1st to July the 6th.
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 four to six lectures, often followed by practical workshops.
The topic of each session is chosen by the scientific committee according to a three-year based schedule, in such a way that, ideally, a PhD student may follow an entire cycle of sessions during his/her doctoral program. In any case, each edition of the School, and each session of an edition is fully autonomous and can be followed independently by the others.
Each session is organized in a homogenous way, including a general introduction, a series of in-deep examinations, and one or more real-life case studies. Speakers are invited from all around the world, not only on the basis of their absolute scientific excellence, but also by asking them a particular care on didactic aspects.
This kind of didactic and scientific organization allows to accept quite a large number of participants, being the average number higher than 200 over the last years. The facilities of the Campus Sogesta in Urbino represent the ideal location for spending a week in a scientific, social and cultural environment with few analogues around the world.
This year, the scientific program is already defined and includes the following topics: (i) Biological and small molecules for molecular targets in oncology (ii) New paradigms in drug adsorption (iii) Advanced methodologies in organic synthesis (iv) Biomarkers in drug discovery. The detailed program, as well as a lot of other information can be found at www.esmec.eu .
So far, seventeen speakers have already accepted to participate, equally distributed from academia and industry. As usual, participants are invited to present a poster on their research, and there will be two poster sessions where results and methodologies can be freely discussed. The 10 best posters will be selected for an oral presentation and awarded with a free registration for the next year’s School.
As it holds for the other EFMC Schools, the ESMEC keeps the original format of the parent national School. Thus, although the official language is English, and all the events, including the social and recreational ones, are in English, the majority of attendees is still Italian. The trend is however changing, and year by year, we witness an increasing number of participants from all around Europe, with a special emphasis from east Europe.
Last but not least, the registration fee, which includes full lodging, is as low as 420 Euro, which should promote the broadest participation of students and young researchers. The Director of the School, Gloria Cristalli, and the Scientific and Organizing committees cordially invite all of you to join the 2007 edition of the School and to contribute to its success.
By Gabriele Costantino
