Ed Griffen

Save the date! Next year's European #RDKit UGM will take place from 16-18 September in Darmstadt, Germany.
Pre-registration will open in early 2026.

A screenshot showing that my "rdkit_new" conda environment is running the 2025.09.1 RDKit release

Yay! #RDKit

Great news! 🎉

Following an independent expert review, we have formally nominated the broad-spectrum pan-coronavirus antiviral ASAP-0017445 as a pre-clinical drug candidate.

🔗Read the press release here: dndi.org/press-releas...

I first wrote about some of the early stages of this project in March 2020 (cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...).
I've been privileged to follow along since then (cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...).
Congratulations to everyone who contributed.

It’s the travel choice of the future…

And Milan Centrale is an architectural wonder!

Thanks to @greglandrum.bsky.social and all the #RDKit crew another great UGM,now back along the Elbe as the sun sets:

Members of Dr. White’s lab, from left to right, wearing white lab coats: Briana McGovern, BS, Senior Research Associate; Meg Gordon, BA, Research Associate; Dr. White; Dr. Suazo; Jared Benjamin, MS, Research Associate.

ASAP is incredibly proud to work with superstar antiviral discovery scientists at Mount Sinai: Briana McGovern, Meg Gordon, Dr. Kris White, Dr. Suazo, and Jared Benjamin, among others!

Read about their important work here:
health.mountsinai.org/blog/stories...

Down the Elbe to Prague, great way to get to #RDKit:

Picture shows the side of a European Sleeper carriage in maroon livery with “Euro-Express” text on the side.

Sleeper Brussels to Prague, quite traditional for a game changer.

Avanti West coast train, yellow and turquoise livery arriving at Macclesfield (UK) station under the bridge with the word Macclesfield written across it under a blue sky with thin white clouds.

Heading overland to the #RDKit UGM, trying out the sleeper Brussels ->Prague from a London-> Brussels Eurostar. But first:

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪

From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):

Show Your Stripes Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

showyourstripes.info/c/europe/uni...

Priorities people:

Ouch…

AI advances are all about getting enough good data. For the first time this is data at the scale we need it for faster drug discovery. This could make a difference to so many diseases.

Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery 2025 - YouTube Recordings of the talks that took place at the Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery on April 7-8, 2025 in Montreal.

If you weren’t able to attend our Symposium on Open Drug Discovery in Montreal in April, you’re in luck - the recordings are now on YouTube and the slides are on Zenodo!

🎥 Watch the recordings: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

📄 Access the slides: zenodo.org/communities/...

Learning about European approaches to Pandemic Preparedness “We’re not safe till we’re all safe”:
@asapdiscovery.bsky.social
at: health.ec.europa.eu/events/hera-... #HealthUnion

Brilliant explainer from Pascale how to use patents as enablers in preparing for the next pandemic.

Today, @griffen-ed.bsky.social explains at the Open Drug Discovery Symposium how @asapdiscovery.bsky.social has developed a hybrid intellectual property model that counterintuitively uses patents to support open science innovation and ensure affordability & global access.
🔗 shorturl.at/gMY0t

Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery - Submission and registration are open! - Conscience Registration is now open for the second annual Conscience Symposium on Open Drug Discovery! Join us at the Society for Arts and Technology in Montreal on April 7-8, 2025, for two days of insightful ta...

and I'm talking about it at the Conscience symposium next week in Montreal: conscience.ca/symposium2025

If this sparks your interest there's more of our background thinking published on open access in Wellcome Open Science: wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/9-374

Here’s a post on this molecule, and good luck to all involved!

Massive credit to all members of @asapdiscovery.bsky.social :- drug discovery is a massive team sport. Especially the chemists at Enamine working through the war.

Reinstate funding for pandemic prevention research and preparedness Text SIGN PXNIDH to 50409 to send this to your officials.

If you, like me, do not particularly want to die by bleeding out of your eye sockets from diseases like Ebola, and think it's dumb to cut funding for viral countermeasures for future pandemics "because the COVID pandemic is over", here's something you can do about it:
resist.bot/petitions/PX...

Antiviral unveiled that goes after multiple coronaviruses Open-science consortium discloses its lead candidate to fight SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV

New pancoronavirus antiviral targets the main protease (Mpro) of the two different coronaviruses that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and COVID-19. Via @laurahowes.bsky.social @cenmag.bsky.social cen.acs.org/acs-news/acs...

Three days to go until the unveiling of our MERS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 oral antiviral candidate for preclinical development!

ACS talk 4181593 - Discovery of non-peptidomimetic oral combined MERS and SARS-CoV-2 anti-virals Presented by Ed Griffen Part of the session "Developing Countermeasures for Viruses of Pandemic Potential" Room: Digital Session (Digital Meeting) Overview: The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder that a barren global antiviral pipeline has grave humanitarian consequences. Pandemics could be prevented, in principle, by accessible, easily deployable broad-spectrum oral antivirals. Here we report the discovery of a family non-peptidomimetic spirolactams that target critical pathogenic coronaviridae including SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV. As part of the ASAP AViDD centre(www.asapdiscovery.org) we expanded the work of the COVID Moonshot's drug discovery campaign targeting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease to deliver orally active compounds with promising in vivo profiles. Using a combination of active learning based medicinal chemistry, alchemical free energy calculations and structure-based design we were able to extend the coronavirus spectrum and optimise the ADMET properties of the series leading to the first public disclosure of the preclinical candidate.

Lead medicinal chemist Ed Griffen (@griffen-ed.bsky.social) will be disclosing the new ASAP MERS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 oral antiviral at @acs.org on Tue 25 Mar! Tune in to this virtual session to hear about its discovery and development!

acs.digitellinc.com/live/34/sess...

✨Another symposium session reveal✨ Featuring Max Morgan and @griffen-ed.bsky.social, this session features speakers inventing and actively implementing new strategies that centre open science and collaboration to drive drug discovery! Register here: conscience.ca/symposium2025

3 weeks to go🚀
@griffen-ed.bsky.social is presenting at #ICAR2025 the highlights of the discovery, in vitro and in vivo profile of the ASAP AViIDD Center’s pre-clinical candidate for treating 6 lethal coronavirus infections: ASAP-0017445. Register now 🔗 lnkd.in/gbBRZSz2 @asapdiscovery.bsky.social