ELRIG announces Prof Hazel Screen and Dr Dave Powell as keynote speakers for Advances in Cell-Based Screening 2026

ELRIG, a not-for-profit, volunteer-led organization dedicated to the global drug discovery community, today announced the keynote speakers for Advances in Cell-based Screening 2026, taking place at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden from 6-7 May. Prof Hazel Screen (Queen Mary University of London, QMUL) and Dr Dave Powell (Relation Therapeutics) will deliver the keynote presentations during the free-to-attend event which aims to unite scientist from across pharma, biotech, academia, and the supplier ecosystem to discuss what is needed to engineer the post-animal drug discovery pipeline.

Drug discovery is approaching a post‑animal era, driven by the need for more relevant human biology, scalable experimentation, and AI‑ready data. Through collaborative dialogue, the conference aims to help the drug discovery community rework early discovery from animal-gated milestones to human-first decision making.

This year's Advances in Cell-based Screening program will cover four structured sessions discussing relevant biology at scale in complex in vitro models, redesigning assay pipelines to handle vast quantities of multi-dimensional cell-based read-outs, and how AI and ML are transforming complex cellular data and enabling prediction. There will also be a poster award for Early Career Professionals, an AstraZeneca site tour as well as an exhibition hall and the opportunity to network with professionals across the cell-based discovery continuum.

Prof Hazel Screen specializes in organ‑on‑chip technologies to explore the aetiology of health and disease in musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. Her research examines healthy and pathological tissue structure-function relationships and their impact on cell metabolism, developing new models within which to explore fundamental tissue mechanics and biology questions as well as routes to new treatments and drug development. She co‑directed the Center for Predictive in vitro Models at QMUL and leads the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Organ‑on‑a‑Chip Technology (COaCT), a UKRI‑ and industry‑funded initiative training future leaders in the field. Prof Screen also contributes to shaping policy and regulation in predictive in vitro science. She will discuss "Predictive in vitro Models: Addressing the challenges and harnessing the opportunities in pre-clinical testing" during her presentation on the first day.

Fredrik Edfeldt, Conference Director, ELRIG, and Director, Mechanistic Biology & Profiling, AstraZeneca, said: "What really excites me about this year's conference is that we have a very future-looking program - it's really about how we can enable a post-animal testing paradigm and embrace AI. We are honored to have Prof Hazel Screen and Dr Dave Powell share their insights with us during the keynotes. We look forward to welcoming ELRIG's drug discovery community to Gothenburg!"

Sam Barichievy, Conference Director, ELRIG, and Senior Director Reagents and Assays Sweden, AstraZeneca, added: "I'm most excited by the moment our field is in right now: scaling up relevant cell biology and the intelligence we extract from it with AI. Expect practical, high-impact discussions on deep learning for complex imaging, multi-dimensional data pipelines, and what it will take to engineer our cell assay workflows into a faster, more predictive human-first state."

Prof Hazel Screen, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Queen Mary University of London, said: "ELRIG offers an exceptional opportunity to discuss pioneering approaches to predictive in vitro systems. I'm honored to be invited to share the underpinning biomedical engineering approaches feeding into developing organ-chip models and reflect on the challenges associated with effectively translating these into both discovery science and therapeutic testing."

Moving to a human‑first, AI‑enabled discovery pipeline requires deep structural change across biology, data, and organizational practice. I'm delighted to engage with the ELRIG community at Advances in Cell-based Screening to discuss how AI can help to navigate complex cellular data and enhance the predictive accuracy of our efforts to deliver transformative therapies."

Dr Dave Powell, President of Drug Discovery, Relation Therapeutics