DMCCB Basel Symposium 2023

This one-day symposium organised by the Swiss Chemical Society, Division Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was dedicated to “Chemical space beyond small molecules”.

Small molecules have long been the de facto standard in classical drug discovery. In 1997 Chris Lipinski even formulated the term Rule of five, which introduced a set of rules based on molecular properties to the drug discovery community. The rule assesses the likeliness of a small molecule to be orally available, and one component of this rule is that the molecular mass of a molecule is less than 500 Daltons. However, in recent years, drug molecules have grown beyond that space, and new fields have emerged in drug discovery with new modalities to treat patients.

 

The DMCCB Basel Symposium 2023 is dedicated to bringing together experts in the field of macrocyclic molecules, oligonucleotide medicines, carbohydrate vaccines, and drug delivery. The Symposium highlighted the current state-of-the-art while also pointing to the future of beyond the Rule of five molecules and modalities. The broad coverage of this important topic should be of high interest to both students and professionals at the chemistry/biology interface. The symposium was a great chance to connect with scientists from pharma, biotech, and academia in the Basel area.