In person

At this year’s EFMC Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers conference, Marta Carneiro presented poster dedicated to one of the most exciting and challenging areas in drug discovery: molecular glues.

The poster “Biophysics-driven Molecular Glue Discovery” addressed a central question in the field: how do we reliably discover and characterize molecular glues, especially when traditional screening approaches fall short?

Rather than relying solely on affinity-driven methods, the poster highlighted a cooperativity-focused biophysical framework designed to capture the unique behaviour of ternary systems. This shift in perspective is particularly important in molecular glue discovery, where functional activity emerges not just from binding, but from the ability to stabilize productive protein-protein interactions.

During the poster session, Marta shared selected case studies illustrating how fragment-based approaches and tailored biophysical assays can reveal glue-like behaviour that might otherwise be missed. These examples also highlighted the challenges of working with multi-component systems, where subtle changes in cooperativity can make the difference between inactive binders and functional molecular glues.

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Conference website

In person

Molecular glues are rapidly emerging as a transformative modality in drug discovery, enabling novel mechanisms to modulate protein function through stabilization of protein–protein interactions. Yet discovering synthetic molecular glues de novo remains a major challenge, particularly due to the need to identify compounds that both engage a target and promote cooperative ternary complex formation.

At SLAS Europe, our colleague Pim de Vink presented a biophysics-driven framework for molecular glue discovery across challenging targets, with a particular focus on cooperativity as a guiding principle in screening and characterization strategies.

By focusing directly on ternary complex formation and cooperativity, this framework aims to lower the barrier to discovering next-generation molecular glue therapeutics.

Conference website

In person

ZoBio attended the 3rd Biophysics for Drug Discovery Summit 2026 in Boston, a unique, industry-focused forum dedicated exclusively to biophysics. Through case studies, panel discussions, and interactive exchanges, the summit highlights how emerging biophysical technologies are shaping predictive pipelines and accelerating drug discovery.

Marta Carneiro presented the poster: “Tailor-made Biophysics – A versatile toolkit for discovery and validation”, which attracted a lot of attention during the meeting.

Marta shared selected case studies demonstrating how biophysical approaches can address diverse discovery challenges – from fragment-based screening for molecular glues, to profiling covalent compounds and antibody – antigen interactions, as well as generating structural models when X-ray crystallography reaches its limits.

Conference website

Curious to see how these approaches can support complex discovery programs? Download the poster to explore the case studies and insights in more detail.