9ADD workshop (26.1.2026 – 30.1.2026) 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.
Invited Lecturers
prof. Thierry Langer (UniVie, Vienna), prof. Alexandre Varnek (Uni Strasbourg), prof. Hanoch Senderowitz (Bar-Ilan University), assoc. prof. Johannes Kirchmair (UniVie, Vienna), dr. Semen Yesylevskyy (IOCB Prague, KFC UPOL, Receptor.AI), dr. Federica Moraca (UNINA, Napoli), dr. Wim Dehaen (UCT Prague), dr. Martin Šícho (UCT Prague), dr. Martin Lepšík (IOCB Prague), dr. Aleix Gimeno Vives (URV, Tarragona), dr. Peter Ertl (Ertl Molecular), dr. Corin Wagen (RowanSci), dr. Jonathon Vandezande (RowanSci), dr. Marian Novotný (Charles U Prague), dr. Niklas Piet Doering (Freie Universität Berlin), dr. Valerij Talagayev (Freie Universität Berlin), Doc. Dr. Marko Jukic (U Maribor), Doc. Dr. Podlipnik Črtomir (U Ljubljana), Dr. Igor Tetko (HMGU)
Local Organizers
doc. Karel Berka (KFC UPOL), dr. Pavel Polishchuk (IMTM UPOL), Guzel Minibaeva (IMTM UPOL), Aleksandra Ivanova (IMTM UPOL), dr. Václav Bazgier (KFC UPOL), Kateřina Storchmannová (KFC UPOL), Dominik Martinát (KFC UPOL), Anna Špačková (UPOL), Nina Kadášová (KFC UPOL), Jindřich Lněnička (KFC UPOL)
Registration
The meeting will be hybrid. Lectures and tutorial files will be available online, but the on-hand tutorials will be available only on-site.
Only Online registration is OPEN.
Attendance at the event is free of charge.
Posters
Participants can present their research through an on-site poster session (for students, it is an Exam requirement). Registrations with poster presentations were prioritised.
Poster registration is CLOSED.
Discord server
HERE is the NEW link to our Discord server, for discussions over registrations and further topics (even during the workshop for online questions)
Venue
| Palacky University Olomouc (UPOL)
Faculty of Science tř. 17. listopadu 12, Olomouc 77900, Czech Republic |
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Program
The meeting starts on Monday at noon with the Introduction section. It then continues for the next two days with morning lectures and afternoon workshops: Tuesday on SBDD and Pharmacophores, Wednesday on Molecular Docking and Dynamics, and Thursday on Ligand-based Drug design. It ends on Friday with prospective drug selection; we will then order the compounds the participants select and test them experimentally.
The 9ADD Book of Abstracts booklet is available HERE.
Monday, January 26
| 10:00 – 12:00 Registration (3.001a/2.001) |
| 12:00 – 12:15 Opening of the workshop |
| 12:15 – 13:00 Introduction to drug design (Prof. Karel Berka) |
| 13:00 – 14:00 Introduction to chemoinformatrics (Prof. Johannes Kirchmair) |
| 14:00 – 14:30 coffee break |
| 14:30 – 15:00 PDB-Cat (Aleix Gimeno Vives) |
| 15:00 – 16:00 Easy online access to molecular modelling tools with RowanSci (Corin Wagen) |
| 16:00 – 17:00 Poster flash talks |
| 17:00 – 19:00 Poster session |
Tuesday, January 27
| 8:45 – 9:45 Reaction informatics (Prof. Alexandre Varnek) (3.001a/2.001) | |
| 9:45 – 10:45 Alphafoldology (Prof. Karel Berka) | |
| 10:45 – 11:00 coffee break | |
| 11:00 – 12:00 Quantum mechanics in Drug design (Dr. Martin Lepsik) | |
| 12:00 – 13:00 lunch | |
| 13:00 – 14:00 Substructure analysis in drug discovery (Dr. Peter Ertl) | |
| 14:00 – 15:00 Pharmacophores (prof. Thierry Langer) | |
| 15:00 – 15:20 coffee break | |
| Session 1 (3.002) | Session 2 (3.005) |
| 15:20 – 17:45 Pharmacophore tutorial (Prof. Thierry Langer) | 15:20 – 16:30 RowanSci online platform and tools (Jonathon Vandezande) |
| 16:30 – 17:45 Online structural analysis – PrankWeb, MOLE, Vina (Dr. Marian Novotný, Anna Špačková) | |
| 18:30 Conference dinner | |
Wednesday, January 28
| 8:45 – 9:45 From Classical Docking to AI-Enhanced Scoring (Dr. Federica Moraca) (5.007) | |
| 9:45 – 10:45 Application of drug design on plant protector (Prof. Hanoch Senderowitz) | |
| 10:45 – 11:00 coffee break | |
| 11:00 – 12:00 Why ML in Drug discovery is not (yet) a silver bullet (Dr. Semen Yesylevskyy) | |
| 12:00 – 13:00 lunch | |
| Session 1 (3.002) | Session 2 (3.005) |
| 13:00 – 15:00 Docking with EasyDock (Dr. Pavel Polishchuk) | 13:00 – 15:00 Docking tutorial (Dr. Federica Moraca) |
| coffee break | |
| 15:30 – 16:10 Introduction to molecular dynamics (Prof. Berka) (3.005) | |
| 16:10 – 17:30 Molecular dynamics with StreaMD (Aleksandra Ivanova, Dr. Valerij Talagayev) (3.002) | 16:10 – 17:30 Molecular dynamics with OpenMMDL
(Niklas Piet Doering, Dr. Valerij Talagayev) (3.005) |
| 18:20 – Excursion to the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine (IMTM) | |
Thursday, January 29
| 8:45 – 9:45 Introduction QSAR modeling (Dr. Win Dehaen) (3.001a) | |
| 9:45 – 10:45 Introduction to de novo design (Dr. Martin Sicho) | |
| 10:45 – 11:00 coffee break | |
| Session 1 (3.002) | Session 2 (5.007) |
| 11:00 – 12:00 Chemical space visualization (Dr. Martin Sicho) | 11:00 – 12:00 The Orange toolbox for pipeline automation (Dr. Marko Jukic, Dr. Crtomir Podlipnik) |
| 12:00 – 13:00 lunch | |
| 13:00 – 15:00 QSAR tutorial in Python (Dr. Wim Dehaen) | 13:00 – 15:00 QSAR tutorial with OCHEM online platform (Dr. Igor Tetko) |
| coffee break | |
| 15:30 – 17:30 De novo design with CReM (Dr. Pavel Polishchuk, Guzel Minibaeva) | 15:30 – 17:30 De novo design with DrugEx (Dr. Martin Sicho) |
Friday, January 30
| 8:45 – 14:30 Ligand selection challenge (Dr. Pavel Polishchuk) (3.002 and 3.005) |
| 14:30 – 15:00 Presentations of winners |
Course Materials
The event is in English. All course material will be available on this webpage. Videos of lectures will be available on a dedicated YouTube 9ADD playlist.
Monday
- Welcome_to 9ADD (Karel Berka)
- Introduction to drug design (Karel Berka)
- Introduction to chemoinformatrics (Prof. Johannes Kirchmair)
- Cheminfo tools PBD-CAT: Classification and Analzsis Tool and pICkIT: Molecular Interaction Analysis (Aleix Gimeno Vives)
- Easy online access to molecular modelling tools with RowanSci (Corin Wagen)
- Poster flash talks
- 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)
- Pharmacophores (Thierry Langer)
tutorials:
- 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
- From Classical Docking to AI-Enhanced Scoring (Federica Moraca)
- Application of drug design on plant protector (Hanoch Senderowitz)
- Why ML in Drug discovery is not (yet) a silver bullet (Semen Yesylevskyy)
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
Other
- Autodock Vina docking package download page
- AutodockTools/MGL tools package download page
- Autodock4/Autogrid4 packages download page
- Useful software links from IMTM – Pavel Polishchuk_group
- Interactions of small molecules with membranes – MolMeDB
- Protein channel calculation with MOLE and ChannelsDB database
Materials from previous workshops are available at
- https://kfc.upol.cz/8add/, or at YouTube 8ADD channel, or
- https://kfc.upol.cz/7add/, or at YouTube 7ADD channel, or
- https://kfc.upol.cz/6add/, or at YouTube 6ADD channel, or
- https://old.fch.upol.cz/en/research/conferences-workshops/5add/, or
- http://old.fch.upol.cz/en/research/conferences-workshops/4add/, or at YouTube 4ADD channel.
List of Registered On-Site Participants
Once you know you cannot arrive, please contact us at karel.berka@upol.cz or via Discord so we can update your registration to online and allow people on the waiting list in.
| Abonyi Stanley Arinze | University of Nigeria, Nsukka | NG |
| Ádám Lévárdi | Comenius University Bratislava | SK |
| Alessandro Fabiano | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Amir Mahdi Zardoshti | Sharif University of Technology, Tehran | IR |
| Andrea Barbora Vaňková | University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague | CZ |
| AntonellaPia Iuliano | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Anubha Kumari | Vinoba Bhave University Hazaribagh | IN |
| Aqsa Ijaz | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Armando Tucci | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Artem Lennoi | University of Strasbourg | FR |
| Atilio Reyesromero | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Ayla Eren | Istanbul Technical University | TR |
| Barbora Čurdová | University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague | CZ |
| Barbora Hubálková | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Boris Kácal | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Damilola Bodun | Universite Paris Cite | FR |
| David Kopecny | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Derrick Agwora | Charles University, Prague | CZ |
| Dr. Syed Shakeel Shah | University of Narowal | PK |
| Dragos Horvath | Dragos Horvath | FR |
| Elias Hossen Tonmoy | Mawlana Bhashani Science & Technology University | BD |
| Emmanouil Arsenikos | University of Chemistry and Technology Prague | CZ |
| Emmanuel Amarkwei | Mak Pharmacy/Training | GH |
| Fahil Ejaz | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Fateme Maya | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Fauzan Ejaz | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Flavia Della Corte | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Gamal Abdelfattah | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Giada Bellofatto | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Giorgia Andreozzi | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Giorgio Veneruso | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Giulia Saccone | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Giuseppe Angelino | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Guzel Minibaeva | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Haruna Isiyaku Umar | Federal University of Technology Akure | NG |
| Hassan Kotey | University for Development Studies | GH |
| Chudasma krishna | Indrashil university | IN |
| Ijeoma Duru | Federal University of Technology Owerri | NG |
| Imran Ali | GCU Faisalabad | PK |
| Isidoro Cipolletta | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Ivan Čmelo | UCT Prague | CZ |
| Jan Perner | Biology Centre AV ČR, České Budějovice | CZ |
| Jan Salomon | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Javeria shafqat | University of Gujrat, Pakistan | CH |
| Jiří Vlasák | University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague | CZ |
| Joanna Ceklarz | University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague | CZ |
| Joseph Osei Owusu | Mak Pharmacy/Training | GH |
| Kaci Sebouai | NEBULA | FR |
| Kad Manaswi Yogesh | Ict Bhuneshwar Campus. | IN |
| Kateřina Storchmannová | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Kaveri Prasad | Hokkaido University | JP |
| Lamiri Asmaa | Faculte de Sciences de Tunis | TN |
| Lukáš Kerti | Comenius University Bratislava | SK |
| Lukáš Gibala | Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci | CZ |
| Maria Barra Parisi | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Maria Camelia Dinu | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Milana Dejaková | University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague | CZ |
| Mohammad Sayfullah | Noakhali Science and Technology University | BN |
| Mohammad Taheri Ledari | University of Tehran | IR |
| Mohammed Modather Taha | Al Salam University in Egypt | EG |
| Nouran Ahmed Gaber Mohamed | Heliopolis | EG |
| Ondřej Hajdušek | Biology Centre AV ČR, České Budějovice | CZ |
| Oriana Vitale | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Patrik Marek | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Paul Clarke | University of Agder | NO |
| Pavel Kohout | Masaryk University Brno | CZ |
| Raya Roy | Indian Institute of Science Education and Research | IN |
| Riccardo Fusco | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Rishabh Khare | Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland | IE |
| Said Trujillo de León | Universidad Rovira i Virgili | ES |
| Salem Haruna | Mak Pharmacy Ltd | GH |
| Samuel Fanči | Charles University, Prague | CZ |
| Sandeep Satapathy | Garvan Institute of Medical Research | AU |
| Shamim Safaei | Università Degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II | IT |
| Shetu Roy | Mawlana Bhashani Science & Technology University | BA |
| Stanislav Tricolici | Palacky University Olomouc | CZ |
| Swati Sudipta Sahoo | CEITEC, Masaryk university, Brno | CZ |
| Taposh | Mawlana Bhashani Science & Technology University | BD |
| Tereza Kubatova | University of Vienna | AT |
| Thanh-An Pham | University of Strasbourg | FR |
| Tieu Long Phan | Professur für Bioinformatik, Institut für Informatik, Universität Leipzig | DE |
| Tomáš Jelínek | Charles University + BIOCEV | CZ |
| Trupti Patil | Institute of chemical technology | IN |
| Tuyet Minh Phan | UniProfessur für Bioinformatik, Institut für Informatik, Universität Leipzig | DE |
| Valeriia Fil | University of Chemistry and Technology Prague | CZ |
| Vishma Pratap Sur | IPPT PAN, Warsaw, Poland | PL |
| Vít Novotný | University of Chemistry and Technology Prague | CZ |
| Wiktor Nisterenko | Medical University of Gdansk | PL |
| Yehor Franchuk | Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics NAS Ukraine | UA |
Cost and Accommodation
There is no registration fee, also coffee breaks and partially workshop dinner is covered by our sponsors.
Accommodation is not provided by the organizers, but here are several places for consideration depending on your budget:
Accommodation and Dining Services of the Palacky University – https://skm.upol.cz/en/
Long Story Short Hostel – http://www.longstoryshort.cz/
Hotel Arigone – http://www.arigone.cz/en/
and, of course, there is plenty of AirBnB places in “UNESCO jewel” city of Olomouc – https://www.airbnb.cz/s/Olomouc–%C4%8Cesk%C3%A1-republika
If you have any questions, please send them to karel.berka@upol.cz
Sponsors
Challenge is sponsored by:
and Rowan 
