Daily Agenda
Sunday, June 15, 2025
12:00pm - 01:00pm
Young Investigator's Lunch
By invitation only
01:00pm - 03:45pm
Young Investigator Symposium
03:45pm - 04:45pm
Workshop on Career Development
05:30pm - 07:00pm
Opening Reception
President's Welcome & General Assembly Remarks
07:00pm - 07:15pm
Opening Plenary Keynote Lecture

L01 –Margaret Brimble, Distinguished Professor, University of Auckland
Applications of Cysteine Lipidation "CLipPA" Technology : Drugs Vaccines and Biomaterials
Monday, June 16, 2025
07:30am
Exhibits Open
08:25am - 08:30am
Opening Remarks
08:25am -10:00am
Session 1: Strategies for Membrane Permeability or Oral Bioavailability
08:30am - 08:55am

L02 –John Gleeson, Senior Scientist, Merck
Development, Validation, and Implementation of Intestinal Cell Models to Guide Oral Peptide Formulation Design
08:55am - 09:10am

L03 –Severin Schneebeli, Associate Professor, Purdue University
The Molecular Basis of Oral Peptide Delivery with Permeation Enhancers
09:10am - 09:20am

L04 - YI1 –Laura M. Poller, Graduate Student, ETH Zürich
Collagen Cross-Linking: Structure and Sequence Selectivity of Lysyl Oxidase-Like 2
09:20am - 09:35am

L05 –Marco Pires, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Virginia
Systematic Determination of the Impact of Structural Edits on Accumulation into Mycobacteria
09:35am - 10:00am

L06 –Joshua Kritzer, Professor, Tufts University
Chemical Biology Approaches for Measuring Intracellular Drug Delivery
10:00am - 10:25am
Coffee with Exhibitors and Posters
10:30am - 11:55am
Session 2: Bioactive Peptides
10:30am - 10:55am

L07 –Michelle Arkin, Professor, Univ. of California, San Francisco
Peptide/protein Complexes as Models for Protein/Protein Interactions in Drug Discovery
10:55am - 11:10am

L08 –Jaehoon Yu, Ph.D., CAMP Therapeutics
Mitochondrial Targeting α-Helical Amphipathic Peptides As Drug Candidates for Sarcopenia
11:10am - 11:20am

L09 - YI2 –Caroline Almeida, Graduate Student, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and UC Merced
Transcriptional Regulation of Aspergillus nidulans Biofilms from Environmental and Clinical Isolates Exposed to Pisum sativum Defensin 2
11:20am - 11:45am

L10 –David Lawrence, Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina
Peptides as Therapeutic Partners: From Drug Delivery to Molecular Sentinels
11:45am - 12:00pm

L11 –Jun Ohata, Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University
Potential Roles of Solid-State Reactivity of Dipeptides in Prebiotic Polypeptide Synthesis
12:00pm - 02:00pm
Lunch with Exhibitors and Poster Session 1
Poster session starts at 12:30pm
12:00pm - 01:00pm
International Liaison Meeting
02:05pm - 03:40pm
Session 3: Peptide Synthesis and Innovation
02:05pm - 02:10pm
Sponsor Flash Talk
02:10pm - 02:25pm

L12 –Gong Chen, Professor, Nankai University
Simple C1 Chemistry for Peptide Modification
02:25pm - 02:50pm

L13 –Lara Malins, Professor, Australian National University
Advances in Late-Stage Peptide Modification Chemistry: Inspiration from Nature
02:50pm - 03:00pm

L14-YI3 –Zhenquan Sun, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Chicago
Chemical Synthesis of Difficult Peptide and Protein by N,O/S-Benzylidene (thio)Acetals (NBA) Strategy
03:00pm - 03:15pm

L15 –Timothy Reichart, Elliott Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Hampden-Sydney College
Total Chemical Synthesis of a 97-Amino Acid Target-Binding Monobody via Cysteine-Free Conformationally-Assisted Ligation
03:15pm - 03:40pm
Early Career Lectureship Award

L16-AW –Elizabeth, 'Betsy,' Parkinson, Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Utilizing Bioinformatics, Biocatalysis, and Synthetic Chemistry to Access Natural Product-Inspired Cyclic Peptides
03:40pm - 04:05pm
Afternoon Break
04:10pm - 06:20pm
Session 4: Peptide Materials
04:10pm - 04:40pm
du Vigneaud Lecture

L17-AW –Dek Woolfson, Professor, University of Bristol
From Peptides to Proteins to Functions by Design
04:40pm - 04:55pm

L18 –Beate Koksch, Professor, Freie Universität Berlin
Fluoropeptides as Biodegradable Biopolymers
04:55pm - 05:05pm

L19-YI4 –Ashutosh Agrahari, Graduate Student, Purdue University
Growth Mechanism of Coiled-Coil Peptide Nanocrystals and their Application for Intracellular Delivery of Proteins
05:05pm - 05:30pm

L20 –Vincent P. Conticello, Professor, Emory University
Peptide-Based Nanomaterials: Progress from Structural Analysis to Design
05:30pm - 05:45pm

L21 –Tania Lopez-Silva, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Cancer Institute
Peptide Hydrogels Control Neutrophil Extracellular Trap, NET, Formation in vivo with Locoregional Precision
05:45pm - 06:20pm

L22 - AW –Akif Tezcan, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego
Design of Out-of-Equilibrium Biomolecular Assemblies
06:30pm - 07:30pm
Student Mixer
08:00pm - 10:00pm
Pharma Panel
Beyond Potency: PK, Formulation, IP, and More
Moderated by Nicolas Boyer, Principal Scientist, Merck
Panelists:
Elisabetta Bianchi, Director, Discovery Chemistry, Curium
John DiMaio, Patent Attorney, Senior Associate, Hodgson Russ LLP
Ruchia Duggal, Principal Scientist, Merck
Sivaneswary Genapathy, Associate Director, Bicycle Therapeutics
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
07:30am
Exhibits Open
08:25am - 08:30am
Opening Remarks
08:30am - 10:00am
Session 5: Sustainability in Peptide Science
08:30am - 08:45am

L23 –Junfeng Zhao, Professor, Guangzhou Medical University
Peptide Synthesis Using Unprotected Amino Acids
08:45am - 09:10am

L24 –Anna Maria Papini, Professor, University of Florence
Advancing Sustainable Peptide Synthesis: Green Strategies for Scalable and Efficient Automatised Solid-Phase Manufacturing
09:10am - 09:20am

L25 - YI5 –Sikabwe Noki, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal
"Base Labile" Safety Catch Linker. Synthesis and Applications in SPPS in a Green Context
09:20am - 09:35am

L26 –Francesco Merlino, Assistant Professor, University of Naples Federico II
Ultrasound-Powered Sustainable Chemical Synthesis of Bioactive Peptides
09:35am - 10:00am

L27 –Michael Kopach, Associate Vice President, Eli Lilly
Retatrutide: A Novel Triagonist for Metabolic Disorders and CMC Advancements
10:00am - 10:25am
Coffee with Exhibitors and Posters
10:00am - 12:35pm
Session 6: Peptide Therapeutics from Discovery to the Clinic
10:30am - 10:55am

L28 –Carrie Haskell-Luevano, Professor, University of Minnesota
Paradigms for the Discovery of Unknown Naturally Occurring GPCR Ligands in Chemical Neuroscience: Melanocortins and Opioids
10:55am - 11:05am

L29 - YI6 –Tiancheng Chen, Graduate Student, University of Georgia
C-tail Mimics of LRRK2 Downregulate Kinase Activity in Parkinson’s Disease
11:05am - 11:20am

L30 –Aphrodite Kapurniotu, Professor, Technical University of Munich
Designed Macrocyclic Peptides as Nanomolar Inhibitors of Self- and Cross-Sseeded Amyloid Self-Assembly of Alpha-Synuclein
11:20am - 11:35am

L31 –Federica Tucci, Principal Research Scientist, IRBM
R2R01, a Potent Long-Acting RXFP1 Peptide Agonist as Clinical Candidate in Phase 2 Studies for Cardiovascular and Renal Diseases
11:35am - 11:50am

L32 –Robin Polt, Professor, The University of Arizona
O-Linked Glycopeptides Derived from Endogenous Neurotransmitters as a Source of Brain-Penetrant CNS Drugs for the Treatment of Stroke, mTBI and Neurodegeneration
11:50am - 12:35pm

L33 –Pascale Guiton, Assistant Professor, Santa Clara University
Inclusive Mentoring
12:45pm - 02:15pm
Schram Young Scientists' Lunch
08:00pm - 10:00pm
Pharma Panel
Designing and Developing Orally Available Peptides
Moderated by Kaustav Biswas, Sr. Principal Scientist/Sr. Director, Merck
Panelists:
Ashok Bhandari, Executive Vice President, Chief Drug Discovery and Preclinical Development Officer, Protagonist Therapeutics
Gaurav Bhardwaj, Assistant Professor, University of Washington, Co-Founder Vilya
Callie Bryan, Scientific Director and Peptide Lead, Global Discovery Chemistry, Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicines
Ryuji Hayashi, Group Head, Discovery Chemistry, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
Josh Schwochert, Co-founder and CSO, Unnatural Products
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
07:30am
Exhibits Open
08:25am - 08:30am
Opening Remarks
08:35am - 10:00am
Session 7: Protein Modification, Structural Insights, and Disease State
08:30am - 08:55am

L34 –William DeGrado, Professor, Univ. of California, San Francisco
De novo Protein Ddesign of Functional Proteins
08:55am - 09:10am

L35 –Jutta Eichler, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Erlangen-Nurnberg
Bind & Bite: Covalently Stabilized Heterodimeric Coiled-Coil Peptides for the Site-Selective Chemical Modification of Proteins
09:10am - 09:20am

L36 –Thu Nguyen, Ph.D. Candidate in Chemistry, New York University
A Proteomimetic Strategy for Modulation of Intrinsically Disordered Protein MYC
09:20am - 09:30am

L37 –Kira Podolsky, Post Doctoral Research Assistant, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A Peptide can Replace an Essential Enzyme in Yeast
09:30am - 09:45am

L38 –Richard Bayliss, Professor of Molecular Medicine, University of Leeds
Hydrocarbon-Stapled Peptidomimetic of TACC3 Disrupts CHC Interaction and Delays Mitotic Progression
09:45am - 10:00am

L39 –Norman Metanis, Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Chemical Protein Synthesis as a Tool for Therapeutic Applications: The development of Mirror-Image RaPID Technology & New Insulin Analogues
10:00am - 10:25am
Coffee with Exhibitors and Posters
10:30am - 12:00pm
Session 8: Peptides in Oncology
10:30am - 10:55am

L40 –Laura Kiessling, , Novartis Professor of Chemistry
Testing Immune Recognition of Modified Peptides
10:55am - 11:10am

L41 –Andy Wilson, Professor, University of Birmingham
Understanding and Manipulating Protein-Protein Interactions of Aurora-A Kinase Employing Intrinsically Disordered Regions
11:10am - 11:25am

L42 –Jacky C.K Ngo, Associate Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Design of a Covalent Protein-Protein Interaction Inhibitor of SRPKs to Suppress Angiogenesis and Invasion of Cancer Cells
11:25am - 11:50am

L43 –Mark Frigerio, Vice President, Chemistry, Bicycle Therapeutics
Bicycle® Molecules as an Innovative and Unique Therapeutic Class
11:50am - 11:55am
Poster Flash Talk
11:55am - 12:00pm
Poster Flash Talk
12:00pm -02:05pm
Lunch with Exhibitors and Poster Session 2
Poster session starts at 12:30pm
12:30pm - 02:05pm
Poster Judging and Vendor Interactions
02:10pm - 02:35pm
Session 9: Computational Empowerment in Peptide Science
02:10pm - 02:35pm

L44 –Laurie Parker, Professor, University of Minnesota
Using Experimental Approaches and AI-Based Structural Modeling to Understand Kinase-Substrate Interactions
02:35pm - 02:50pm

L45 –Ingrid Dijkgraaf, Professor, Maastricht University
Computational Epitope Mapping and Chemical Engineering of Tick Proteins for Vaccine Development
02:50pm - 03:15pm

L46 –Yu-Shan Lin, Professor - Department Chair, Tufts University
Integrating Molecular Dynamics Simulation & Machine Learning for Cyclic Peptide Structure Prediction
03:15pm - 03:30pm

L47 –Ewa Lis, Chief Executive Officer, Koliber Biosciences
AI-Driven Peptide Discovery: Unlocking the Potential of Peptide Arrays for Therapeutic Development
03:30pm - 03:45pm

L48 –Gaurav Bhardwaj, Assistant Professor, University of Washington
Generative Deep Learning for Accurate de novo Design of Macrocyclic Peptides
03:45pm - 04:15pm
Afternoon Break with Exhibitors
04:20pm - 06:15pm
Session 10: Exploration of Selectivity and Methods for Targeting Disease
04:20pm - 04:45pm

L49 –Lila Gierasch, Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts
How Hsp70 Molecular Chaperones Bind Substrates with Selective Promiscuity
04:45pm - 05:00pm

L50 –Mark Lipton, Associate Professor, Purdue University
Eradicating HIV-1 Latency Through the Development of Dual Inhibitors of HIV-1 Protease and Histone Deacetylase 3
05:00pm - 05:15pm

L51 –Ana Salome Veiga, Assistant Professor, Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine
Unveiling the Mode of Aaction of SARS-CoV-2 Putative Fusion Peptides and their Exploitation as Antiviral Targets
05:15pm - 05:30pm

L52 –Gosuke Hayashi, Associate Professor, Nagoya University
Mirror-Image Monobody Targeting MCP-1 Generated via mRNA Display and Peptide Ligation
Merrifield Award Lecture
05:30pm - 06:15pm

L53-AW –Philip E. Dawson, Professor, Scripps Research Institute
TBD
08:00pm - 10:00pm
Pharma Panel
Sustainability in Peptide Manufacturing
Moderated by Michael Kopach, Associate VP, Eli Lilly
Panelists:
Fernando Albericio, Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Matthew Bio, President and CEO, Snapdragon
Stefan Eissler, Vice President Peptide Manufacturing Upstream, Bachem
Susan Zultanski, Principal Scientist, Merck
Thursday, June 19, 2025
08:15am - 08:20am
Opening Remarks
08:20am - 10:20am
Session 11: Incretins 2025 - Transforming the Transformation
08:20am - 08:25am
Sponsor Flash Talk
08:25am - 08:50am

L54 –Richard DiMarchi, Distinguished Professor, Indiana University
The Chemical Evolution of Peptides To Transform Human Health
08:50am - 09:15am

L-55 –Timo Müller, Professor, Ludwig Maximilians University München
Novel Insights into Regulation of Energy and Glucose Metabolism by GIP and GIPR:GLP-1R Co-Agonists
09:15am - 09:30am

L56 –Poanna Tran, Research Scientist, Gubra ApS
Machine Learning Guided Peptide Drug Discovery Speeds up Lead Identification as Demonstrated with Novel GLP-1R Agonists
09:30am - 09:50am

L57 –Christoffer Clemmensen, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen
Peptide-Based Therapeutics for Treatment of Cardiometabolic Diseases
Makineni Lecture
09:50am - 10:20am

L58-AW –Krishna Kumar, Robinson Professor of Chemistry, Tufts University
Two Bites at the Apple: Design and Repair of Peptide Therapeutics
10:20am - 10:40am
Coffee Break
10:40am - 12:30pm
Session 12: Disease-Focused Peptide Discovery
10:40am - 11:05am

L59 –James Nowick, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine
Potent Peptide Antibiotics Against Pernicious Pathogens
11:05am - 11:20am

L60 –Juan Del Valle, W.K. Warren Family Professor, University of Notre Dame
β-Arch Macrocycles as Functional Tau Proteomimetics
11:20am - 11:45am

L61 –Maja Köhn, Professor, University of Bonn
Targeting Phosphatases with Peptides and Phosphomimetics
11:45am - 12:00pm

L62 –Huong Kratochvil, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina
Going with the Flow: Proton-Selective Transport through de novo Designed Peptide Bundles
Goodman Lecture
12:00pm - 12:30pm

L63-AW –William Lubell, Professor, Université de Montréal
Semicarbazides as Amino Amide Surrogates in Peptide Mimicry for Treating Unmet Medical Conditions
12:30pm - 01:40pm
Lunch on Your Own
12:30pm - 01:30pm
du Vigneaud Luncheon - by Invitation only
Sponsored by BACHEM
01:45pm - 03:30pm
Session 13: Implications and Applications of PTMs
01:45pm - 02:10pm

L64 –Marcey Waters, Glen H. Elder, Jr. Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina
Addressing the Challenge of Selective Inhibition of Histone Trimethyllysine Reader Proteins through Electrostatic Pocket Mapping
02:10pm - 02:25pm

L65 –Mark Distefano, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, University of Minnesota
Synthetic Peptides and Modified Forms of Full-Length K-Ras4B, Prepared via Expressed Protein Ligation, Provide Insights into its Posttranslational Modification
02:25pm - 02:35pm

L66 –Muhammad Jbara, Assistant Professor, Tel Aviv University
Cracking the Code of PTMs on Transcription Factor-DNA Interactions Using Synthetically Modified Proteins
02:35pm - 02:45pm

L67 –Chi Ting, Assistant Professor, Brandeis University
Chemical Synthesis of Ribosomally Synthesized and Post-translationally Modified Peptides (RiPPs)
02:45pm - 03:00pm

L68 –Y. George Zheng, Panoz Professor of Pharmacy, University of Georgia
Identification of Lysine Acetoacetylation as a Novel Protein Post-Translational Modification
du Vigneaud Lecture
03:00pm - 03:30pm

L69 –Ashraf Brik, Professor, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Ubiquitin Signaling: Chemistry, Biology and Drug Discovery
03:30pm - 03:35pm
Afternoon Break
04:00pm - 06:00pm
Session 14: New Fronteirs in Peptide Science
04:00 - 04:25

L70 –Hiroaki Suga, Professor, University of Tokyo
De Novo Discovery of Pseudo-Natural Products
04:25pm - 04:50pm

L71 –Christian Heinis, Associate Professor, EPFL
Membrane-Permeable Cyclic Peptides Against Intracellular Targets and for Oral Delivery
04:50pm - 05:05pm

L72 –Louise Walport, Group Leader, Imperial College London and The Francis Crick Institute
Exploiting Covalency in mRNA Displayed Cyclic Peptides
05:05pm - 05:50pm
Closing Plenary Keynote Lecture

L73 –Scott Miller, Sterling Professor of Chemistry, Yale University
Peptide-Based Catalysis Version 2.0
05:50pm - 06:00pm
Closing Remarks
07:00pm - 10:00pm
Closing Banquet