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Day 1

The winter school began on 24^th January. It was a rainy afternoon in Madrid when the doctoral students of TargetRNA, EU-OPENSCREEN Impulse and Fragment Screen gathered at CSIC-CIB. The programme began with an introduction by Prof. Bengt Erik Haug (ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´). Following this, Prof. Harald Schwalbe (GUF) delivered an informative talk on Fragment-Based Drug Discovery including basics of NMR-based screening and Hit-to-Lead developments, leading up to advanced concepts for NMR enthusiasts. Next on the agenda was a comprehensive overview of the drug discovery pipeline by Dr. Carmen Gil (CSIC-CIB). After a short coffee break, an overview of the EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC was given by the hosts Caroline Babisz and Tanja Miletic. The day concluded with Prof. Ruth Brenk (ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´) sharing an overview of the TargetRNA network along Caroline Babisz and Tanja Miletic, introducing the other doctoral networks participating in the Winter School.

Day 2

The next day started with a series of flash talks by different doctoral students to give a concise overview of their research, which would continue the remaining days of the winter school. The first lecture of the day was given by Prof. Matthias Mack (MUAS) which focused on quantitative thinking and numerical frameworks relevant to biological systems. It was followed by an interesting talk by Dr. Ted Fitzgerald on optical biosensing for fragment screening including detailed insights his own doctoral research. 

After lunch break, Prof. Mack delivered his second lecture of the day which focused on bacterial gene expression and regulatory networks including a comprehensive overview of riboswitches. The day ended with Dr. Edgar Specker’s lecture on principles of compound selection, optimisation and library design within the drug discovery process. The talks were quite engaging and attracted a lot of interesting questions from the enthusiastic students.

Day 3

The flash talk session was followed by a joint lecture by Dr. Henri Chétodal and Dr. Román Foronda Sainz, postdoctoral researchers under Prof. Mads H. Clausen (DTU). The lecture covered ProTACs and BioRIBOTACs, respectively, both of which are therapeutic approaches involving targeted degradation of biomacromolecules. 

The second half of the day began with an interactive lecture from Dr. Rosario Fernandez Godino (MEDINA, Granada) on biological validation and assay development of RNA therapeutics which focused on experimental design of target validation and assessing biological activities. After this, the topic shifted from core biology and chemistry to entrepreneurial strategies, as Dr. Specker delivered a talk on business pitches to potential investors. The students were greatly interested and engaged with the speakers in lively interactions that continued from the classroom to the coffee breaks.

Day 4

Day 4 was introduced by yet another student flash talk session. After this Willem Velema, assistant professor at the Institute for Molecules and Materials (IMM) at Raboud University and supervisor of one of the TargetRNA PhD students, gave an interesting talk expanding on the concept of ligand discovery. In contrast to most other research presented so far, Wim’s talk included covalent ligands and how development of these could be approached. The day continued with Helen Yu, associate professor at Swansea University, giving a talk about commercialization of pharmaceutical and medicinal products and the associated challenges. She also presented how policy on different levels is involved in medicinal product innovation – as a challenge to tackle, but also how policy making could be used as a tool to move innovation forward.

In the afternoon, focus turned towards computational chemistry and artificial intelligence in connection to the drug discovery topic. Johannes Kirchmair, professor at the University of Vienna, gave a talk about metabolism prediction and small molecule interference using computational methods. This was followed by Zoe Courina (Academy of Athens) presenting the notion of allostery and its consequences for drug discovery, as well as how AI can be implemented to aid in developing ligands for allosteric proteins. 

Day 5

After the final flash talk session concluded, it was time for the doctoral students to vote for the best flash talk. Three students achieved the identical number of votes, winning each of them the award and highlighting the quality of presentations. The prize covers the registration fee for the European Chemical Biology Symposium 2027 in Milan, which is a great opportunity for scientific exchange in the field. Congrats to the winners!

As the winter school came to an end, Prof. Ruth Brenk gave an interactive session with hands-on tips and tricks for visualizing target-ligand complexes using PyMOL. The session was tailored to users of different skill levels, benefiting the attendees by making an integral part of presenting research more tangible. The program was wrapped up by a final presentation before the participants went back to their home institutions – with new ideas, motivation, a deeper understanding of their field and collaboration opportunities that will advance their research. Sincere thanks to the organizers and attendees for a great week of science!