School 1: In Silico drug design and biomolecular NMR screening in drug discovery

The 1st EuroNeurotrophin Training Week started with the workshop on Computer-Aided Drug Design, which took place on the 5th – 6th of December, 2018, at the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens. HITS and NHRF gave to the ESRs an overview of molecular modeling theory and applications, while the ESRs had the opportunity of a hands-on experience on the molecular modeling software of Schrӧdinger, LLC. During the workshop, the ESRs had practicals on several computational techniques, such as visualization of neurotrophin receptors and their agonists, energy minimization of small molecules, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations of neurotrophins. This training enabled ESRs to familiarise themselves with the structural features of neurotrophins and their receptors. Also, NHRF provided ESRs with an introduction on Saturation-Transfer Difference NMR theory and applications on neurotrophins.

We gratefully acknowledge the provision of free academic licenses of Schrödinger suite and technical support by Schrödinger, LLC  for School 1 "Computer-Assisted Drug Design, Synthesis and Isolation from Natural Sources of Neurotrophin Mimetics”,  held in Athens, Greece, 5-10 December 2018