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:

  • How LLMs and multi-agent systems are currently being used across the DMTA cycle,

  • Where they still face limitations and how to overcome them

  • 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.

Speakers and agenda coming soon...
Untitled design (1)-1

Jennifer Hanisak, Ph.D.

Associate Principal Scientist, Peptide Discovery, Merck & Co.

 

Medicinal chemistry expert currently working on macrocyclic peptides and focused on expanding capabilities around peptide design and synthesis.

Leonardo circle

Leonardo De Maria, Ph.D.

Principal Scientist, AstraZeneca

 

Prominent computational chemist fully involved in the computational design and optimization of R&I New Modality compounds.

 

home_lecture

More speakers coming soon

 

 

Untitled design (1)-2

Alec Flyer, Ph.D.

Associate Director, Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research (NIBR)

 

Medicinal chemistry expert with a background in developing orally bioavailable cyclic peptides.

Markus Kossner (2)

Markus Kossner, Ph.D.

Scientific Services Manager, Chemical Computing Group

 

Experienced application scientist supporting Drug Discovery experts with contempoprary technology for peptide discovery.

home_lecture

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..."

 

How was it last year?
Last year’s Meetup event featured expert presentations, a live Q&A session, and a dynamic roundtable discussion.