Discngine Meetup Vol. 6
Large Language Models in Drug Discovery: From Promise to Practical Impact
October 20, 2026 - 4:00 PM (CET) | 10:00 AM (EDT) - Online
Join us for our annual virtual community event!
Every year, Discngine hosts the Discngine Meetup - a virtual & dynamic interdisciplinary gathering at the intersection of computational sciences and drug discovery, covering emerging topics in the field.
This year’s theme, “Large Language Models in Drug Discovery: From Promise to Practical Impact”, focuses on assessing the real capabilities of conversational Large Language Models (LLMs) and multi-agent systems in pharmaceutical R&D.
While LLMs have gained strong momentum across the industry, with dedicated teams actively developing and experimenting with these technologies, their real-world impact on drug discovery workflows is still taking shape. Many of the benefits initially expected remain to be fully demonstrated in practice.
Through presentations and use cases shared by experts in the field, this two-hour virtual event will explore:
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How LLMs and multi-agent systems are currently being used across the DMTA cycle,
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Where they still face limitations and how to overcome them
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What are the future directions for agentic AI in discovery workflows
Designed for drug discovery scientists and computational experts across the Discngine network and beyond, this event will give participants a clearer and more grounded view of the current role of LLMs in pharma R&D and their realistic potential going forward.
Jennifer Hanisak, Ph.D.
Medicinal chemistry expert currently working on macrocyclic peptides and focused on expanding capabilities around peptide design and synthesis.
Leonardo De Maria, Ph.D.
Prominent computational chemist fully involved in the computational design and optimization of R&I New Modality compounds.
More speakers coming soon
Alec Flyer, Ph.D.
Medicinal chemistry expert with a background in developing orally bioavailable cyclic peptides.
Markus Kossner, Ph.D.
Experienced application scientist supporting Drug Discovery experts with contempoprary technology for peptide discovery.
More speakers coming soon
Agenda
| Time | Session | |
| CET (Paris) | EDT (Boston) | |
| 16:00 - 16:10 | 10:00 - 10:10 | Online access & Welcome |
| 16:10 - 16:45 | 10:10 - 10:45 |
Plenary talk: Leonardo De Maria, Ph.D. Therapeutic peptide generative models, scoring functions, and retrosynthesis |
| 16:45 - 17:15 | 10:45 - 11:15 |
Presentation: Jennifer Hanisak, Ph.D. Advancements in peptide late-stage functionalization for drug discovery |
| 17:15 - 17:45 | 11:15 - 11:45 |
Roundtable: Leonardo De Maria, Ph.D. (chair), Alec Flyer, Ph.D., Markus Kossner, Ph.D., Jennifer Hanisak, Ph.D. The future of Peptide Discovery: challenges, best practices, and outlooks |
| from 17:45 | from 11:45 |
Networking |
vvv
| 16:00 - 16:45 |
Welcome & Plenary John Smith, Novartis: "Peptide design 2.0" |
| 16:45 - 17:15 |
Presentation John Smith, Bayer: "Innovation ..." |
| 17:15 - 17:45 |
Presentation David Thompson, CCG: "Technology..." |
