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), Rowan
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)
Registration
The meeting will be in a hybrid format. Lectures and tutorial files will be available online, but the on-hand tutorials will be only on-site.
Registration is HERE.
Attendance at the event is free of charge. The workshop room holds up to 36 seats, lecture room holds up to 80 seats. .
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 HERE.
Discord server
HERE is the 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, Thursday on Ligand-based Drug design and ends on Friday with prospective drug selection – we will then order the compounds the participants will select and test them experimentally.
9ADD Book of Abstracts booklet will be available here a week before the event.
A detailed final program will be available here by the end of November:
Course Materials
The language of the event is English. All course material will be available on this webpage. Videos of lectures will be available on a dedicated YouTube 9ADD playlist.
Monday
- Welcome (Karel Berka)
- Drug design intro (Karel Berka)
- Structure Alphafoldology (Karel Berka)
- Cheminfo tools PBD-Cat and Activity Cliffs (Aleix Gimeno Vives)
- Rowan structure-based drug design (RowanSci)
- Poster quick introductions
- Poster session – Book of Abstracts
Tuesday
- Reaction Informatics (Alexandre Varnek)
- Cheminformatics (Johannes Kirchmair)
- QM in Drug Design (Martin Lepšík)
- Pharmacophores (Thierry Langer)
- Pharmacophores tutorial (Thierry Langer) + LigandScout installation (licence code is given to onsite registrants on the workshop)
Wednesday
- Molecular Docking lecture (Federica Moraca) + tutorial (Federica Moraca)
- Cofolding intro + applications (Semen Yesylevskyy)
- Application of drug design on plant protector (Hanoch Senderowitz)
- EasyDock (Pavel Polishchuk) + Easydock tutorial ZIP file (Pavel Polishchuk)
- StreaMD (Pavel Polishchuk)
Thursday
- QSAR (Wim Dehaen) + QSAR tutorial (Wim Dehaen)
- De novo design (Martin Šícho)
- Chemical space visualisation tutorial (Martin Šícho)
Friday
- Prospective drug selection (Pavel Polishchuk)
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 so we can change you to online registration.
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
