Drug discovery for infectious diseases relies heavily on the ability to rapidly and efficiently identify drug candidates. High-throughput and high-content screening approaches allow scientists to rapidly screen hundreds of leading candidate molecules and assess their mechanistic and phenotypic effects on living cells in real-time. In this webinar, experts will discuss recent advances in high-throughput and high-content screening to efficiently identify therapeutic candidates for infectious diseases, such as schistosomiasis and COVID-19.

Topics to be covered

• Adapting high-content screening methods to living organisms
• Leveraging DNA-encoded libraries for high-throughput drug discovery



  • 1632141546-12036a1560d00371
    Michelle Arkin, PhD
    Professor and Chair, Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department, Co-director, Small Molecule Discovery Center, University of California, San Francisco
    Michelle Arkin is professor and chair of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and co-director of the Small Molecule Discovery Center. Her lab develops chemical probes and drug leads for novel targets, with a particular interest in protein-protein interactions and protein-degradation networks. Arkin holds leadership roles in the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium, the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening, and the ATOM research initiative, which incorporates artificial intelligence in drug discovery. Prior to UCSF, Arkin was the associate director of cell biology at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals. Arkin is a cofounder of Ambagon and Elgia Therapeutics.
  • 1632141640-5fcf6665aa53d104
    Damian W. Young, PhD
    Associate Director, Center for Drug Discovery, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Immunology, Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, Baylor College of Medicine
    Damian Young is the associate director for the Center for Drug Discovery at Baylor College of Medicine and an assistant professor in the departments of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology and Pathology and Immunology. His research applies modern synthetic organic chemistry to construct collections of biologically active small molecules for drug discovery. His lab was among the first to apply the principles of diversity generation to fragment-based drug discovery and DNA-encoded library platforms. Young obtained a BS in chemistry from Howard University and a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from North Carolina State University. He pursued his postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Stuart Schreiber at Harvard University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Prior to joining Baylor College of Medicine, Young was a group leader within the Chemical Biology Program at the Broad Institute and a Project Leader for the Harvard/Broad Centers of Excellence in Methodology and Library Development.