Topics and Expertise: Drug Discovery

Team efforts at the School and beyond produce two potential treatments for COVID-19.

Michael Keiser, PhD, and Kangway Chuang, PhD, want to use machine learning to speed the pace of drug discovery. By digging into the work of another lab, the pair realized how machine learning could lead scientists astray—and came up with methods to avoid its worst pitfalls.

Drug discovery today begins with computation rather than test tube experimentation. Three School of Pharmacy faculty emeriti, Robert Langridge, Irwin “Tack” Kuntz, and the late Peter Kollman, were awarded the UCSF Medal for creating computational tools for drug discovery that are now used worldwide.

Sessions include: quickly identifying molecules that show potential as drugs; improving access and treatments for AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; why curiosity and imagination are taking the place of memorization the PharmD curriculum. Honoring the Class of 1968. Kennedy receives Distinguished...