The 9ADD workshop (January 26–30, 2026) is an international hybrid event hosted by Palacký University Olomouc that focuses on modern in silico approaches to drug design, combining lectures and hands-on tutorials in structure-based and ligand-based drug discovery, including molecular docking, molecular dynamics, pharmacophores, QSAR, de novo design, and deep learning, delivered by leading experts from academia and industry.
The workshop is focused on using in silico tools and approaches in drug design. We cover both structure-based drug design (molecular docking, molecular dynamics, structural bioinformatics tools) and ligand-based drug design (QSAR, pharmacophores, deep learning) with lectures and on-hand tutorials.
In addition to the educational program, the workshop includes an excursion to IMTM facilities and features a competitive challenge in which participants - working individually or in teams - apply computational methods to prioritize compounds against a real biological target from a blind dataset, aiming to maximize true active hit discovery within a limited time. The best-performing predictions will be ranked on a leaderboard, rewarded with prizes, and considered for prospective compound purchasing and experimental validation, thereby directly linking computational modeling with real-world drug discovery outcomes.
More info about workshop and registration is HERE.
The meeting will be hybrid. Lectures and tutorial files will be available online, but the on-hand tutorials will be available only on-site.
The 9ADD workshop is a part of EATRIS Spotlight Programme.
PROGRAM
Monday
- Welcome (Karel Berka)
- Drug design intro (Karel Berka)
- Structure Alphafoldology (Karel Berka)
- Cheminfo tools PBD-Cat and Activity Cliffs (Aleix Gimeno Vives)
- RowanSci lecture – easy online access to molecular modelling tools (Corin Wagen)
- Poster quick introductions
- Poster session – Book of Abstracts
Tuesday
- Reaction Informatics (Alexandre Varnek)
- Cheminformatics (Johannes Kirchmair)
- QM in Drug Design (Martin Lepšík)
- Substructure analysis in drug discovery (Peter Ertl)
tutorials:
- Pharmacophores (Thierry Langer)
- Pharmacophores tutorial (Thierry Langer) + LigandScout installation (licence code is given to onsite registrants at the workshop)
in parallel with:
- RowanSci online platform and tools (Jonathon Vandezande)
- Structural analysis with online tools – PrankWeb, MOLE, Vina (Marian Novotný, Anna Špačková)
Wednesday
- Molecular Docking lecture (Federica Moraca)
- Cofolding intro + applications (Semen Yesylevskyy)
- Application of drug design on plant protector (Hanoch Senderowitz)
Tutorials:
- Molecular docking tutorial (Federica Moraca)
- Molecular dynamics with OpenMMDL (Niklas Piet Doering, Dr. Valerij Talagayev)
in parallel with:
- EasyDock (Pavel Polishchuk) + Easydock tutorial ZIP file (Pavel Polishchuk)
- StreaMD (Aleksandra Ivanova, Pavel Polishchuk)
Thursday
- QSAR (Wim Dehaen)
- Introduction to de novo design (Martin Šícho)
tutorials:
- Chemical space visualisation tutorial (Martin Šícho)
- QSAR tutorial in Python (Wim Dehaen)
- De novo design with CReM (Dr. Pavel Polishchuk, Guzel Minibaeva)
in parallel with:
- The Orange toolbox for pipeline automation (Dr. Marko Jukic, Dr. Crtomir Podlipnik)
- QSAR tutorial with OCHEM online platform (Dr. Igor Tetko)
- De novo design with DrugEx (Dr. Martin Sicho)
Friday
- Prospective drug selection (Pavel Polishchuk)
