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Cambridge Healthtech Institute Training Seminars offer real-life case studies, problems encountered and solutions applied, along with extensive coverage of the academic theory and background. Each Training Seminar offers a mix of formal lecture and interactive discussions and activities to maximize the learning experience. These Training Seminars are led by experienced instructors who will focus on content applicable to your current research and provide important guidance for those new to their fields.

Training Seminars will be offered IN-PERSON ONLY.





Training Seminars

Monday, September 28, 2026 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM

TS3A: AI-Driven Design of Biologics: State-of-the-Art ML Models & Real-World Applications

Artificial intelligence has driven remarkable breakthroughs in structure prediction, sequence design, and protein engineering. This course equips researchers – from those seeking a first foothold in the field to practitioners looking for deeper insight into emerging models and their application – with a rigorous, grounded understanding of foundational tools including AlphaFold, Boltz, ImmuneBuilder, ESM, AntiBERTy, ProteinMPNN, and RFDiffusion, as well as emerging pipelines such as BindCraft, RFAntibody and BoltzGen. Three building sessions move from foundational principles to real-world application, examining where the models come from, model selection and thoughtful application, and how performance benchmarks hold up – or don't – in active discovery pipelines.
Instructor:
David P. Nannemann, PhD, Vice President, Rosetta Commons Foundation

Session 1: Foundations 

  • Origins and evolution of AI protein models: from early sequence models to modern structure-based diffusion approaches
  • Understanding training data: sources, biases, and implications for model generalizability with best practices for model selection 

Session 2: Using AI Models

  • AI model selection and thoughtful application, with discussion of inputs and outputs
  • The role of the oracle in generative AI protein design

Session 3: Real-World Applications 

  • Benchmarked performance vs. real-world biologics discovery: navigating the gap
  • In silico selection metrics, sampling strategies, and translating computational results to the lab​

INSTRUCTOR BIOGRAPHY:

Photo of David P. Nannemann, PhD, Vice President, Rosetta Commons Foundation
David P. Nannemann, PhD, Vice President, Rosetta Commons Foundation
David is an expert in protein engineering and computational design, with extensive experience applying AI-driven modeling tools in an industry setting. He serves as Vice President of the Rosetta Commons Foundation and Industry Chair on the Rosetta Commons board, helping bridge academic advancements with industry applications. As Managing Member of Rosetta Design Group, he collaborates with companies of all sizes to tackle complex challenges in biologics design. David's deep expertise in leveraging cutting-edge tools like Rosetta, AlphaFold, and diffusion-based models for protein design make him an invaluable guide for participants looking to apply AI-driven biologics design in real-world settings.

TS4A: The End Game: From Lead Optimization to Drug Candidate Selection

Drugs interact with complex physiology to give different activities under different conditions. The discovery candidate selection process must demonstrate these different activities in anticipation of therapeutic outcomes; failure at this stage is the most costly and the translation of drug activity to human pathophysiology is a notorious graveyard for projects. Pharmacology is the unique discipline to prevent this. This course will take registrants through the unique aspects of Pharmacologic analysis of drug-target interaction to convert descriptive data (what we see) to predictive data (what will be seen in other systems). Data from a range of candidate targets (GPCRs, ion channels, enzymes) and ligands (small molecules, biologics, allosterics) will be used to demonstrate the techniques Pharmacology has to offer to quantify drug potency, efficacy and modulatory activity in a variety of settings. In addition to discussion of techniques, a series of case histories will be used to illustrate the concepts.
Instructor:
Terrence P. Kenakin, PhD, Professor, Pharmacology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Detailed Agenda
Session 1 (9:00-11:00 am)

  • Introduction to candidate selection
  • Some unique features of pharmacology as a discipline
  • The drug discovery landscape and discovery infrastructure
  • Pharmacologic assays: The Eyes to See
  • Pharmacologic tools: The Dose-Response Curve

Session 2 (1:30-3:30 pm)

  • Determining mechanism of action
  • Ligand affinity
  • Ligand efficacy
  • Allosteric protein function

Session 3 (4:00-6:00 pm)

  • Pharmacokinetics for discovery
  • Early safety studies
  • In Vivo residence time and kinetics
  • The Endgame: case studies 

INSTRUCTOR BIOGRAPHY:

Photo of Terrence P. Kenakin, PhD, Professor, Pharmacology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Terrence P. Kenakin, PhD, Professor, Pharmacology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Beginning his career as a synthetic chemist, Terry Kenakin received a PhD in Pharmacology at the University of Alberta in Canada. After a postdoctoral fellowship at University College London, UK, he joined Burroughs-Wellcome as an associate scientist for 7 years. From there, he continued working in drug discovery for 25 years first at Glaxo, Inc., then Glaxo Wellcome, and finally as a Director at GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development Laboratories at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA. Dr. Kenakin is now a professor in the Department of Pharmacology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill. Currently he is engaged in studies aimed at the optimal design of drug activity assays systems, the discovery and testing of allosteric molecules for therapeutic application, and the quantitative modeling of drug effects. In addition, he is Director of the Pharmacology graduate courses at the UNC School of Medicine. He is a member of numerous editorial boards, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Receptors and Signal Transduction. He has authored numerous articles and has written 10 books on pharmacology.