ELRIG’s Protein Sciences in Drug Discovery 2026 meeting will be held at GSK Stevenage (UK) on November 10th-11th 2026. The meeting is hosted in partnership with the Protein Society and will focus on the application of emerging areas of Protein Science to the challenges of modern drug discovery with a strong focus on how advances in AI and the underlying data is driving drug discovery.
The program will cover AI and machine learning methods to perform predictive protein design and the development in silico workflows to support protein science. This will be followed by advanced protein and antibody QC techniques and approaches for developing protocols for challenging targets including membrane proteins and protein complexes. Novel therapeutic protein formats such as antibody drug conjugates and therapeutic proteins will be explored.
We welcome you, join scientists from academia, pharma, biotech and CROs to hear the latest research, network and visit the exhibition.
Track information
Day 1 – Tuesday 10 November
Day 1 – AM
AI and ML in protein sciences
Track Chairs: Nicola Burgess Brown (SGC-UCL)
Machine learning models that predict protein behavior (from biophysical properties to expression and binding) are rapidly transforming how Protein Sciences teams operate and how drug discovery projects are delivered. This session will explore the critical data generation that underpins these models, how they are being applied to address key unmet needs, and what the future of model-driven protein science may look like.
Day 1 – PM
Challenging targets and complexes
Track Chairs: Rick Davies (Sygnature Discovery)
Target proteins are critical components of drug discovery programs. Expressing and purifying proteins in a relevant form sets the path for the discovery of therapeutic agents. Increasingly modern drug discovery is focused on targets which are increasingly challenging to produce, including multi-protein complexes, disordered proteins, membrane proteins and proteins in particular states of activation/repression. All these types of proteins need to be produced and formatted to enable structural and functional studies to drive projects forward. In this track, we will look at examples of novel approaches to producing these challenging targets.
Day 2 – Wednesday 20 November
Day 2 – AM
Developability and quality control for antibodies and alternative biologics
Track Chairs: Pietro Sormanni
This session will explore strategies to ensure antibody and alternative biologic candidates are robust, manufacturable, and fit for late-stage development. It will cover predictive developability assessment, biophysical quality control, and approaches to mitigate liabilities such as aggregation, instability, and heterogeneity. Emphasis will be placed on integrating developability thinking early, across diverse modalities, to accelerate translation from discovery to clinic.
Day 2 – PM
Non-standard binding proteins: tackling the production challenges
Track Chairs: Kim Remans (European Molecular Biology Laboratory)
Drug discovery is embracing a growing range of binding proteins beyond conventional antibodies, including new scaffold proteins, single-domain antibodies and AI-designed proteins. These molecules all offer distinct advantages for engaging difficult biological targets, but also represent unique challenges related to expression, purification and characterization. This session will explore the strategies researchers are using to address the design and production of non-standard binder formats and highlight how creative protein science can enable next-generation therapeutic candidates.