ELRIG, a volunteer-led non-profit organization dedicated to the global drug discovery community, today announced the keynote speakers for Advances in Cell-based Screening 2026, to be held at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden, May 6-7. Professor Hazel Screen (Queen Mary University of London, QMUL) and Dr Dave Powell (Relation Therapeutics) will deliver keynote addresses during the free-to-attend event, which aims to unite scientists from across pharma, biotech, academia and the supplier ecosystem to discuss what it takes to engineer post-animal drug discovery pipelines.
Drug discovery is moving toward a post-animal era with the need for more relevant human biology, scalable experiments, and AI-enabled data. This conference aims to help the drug discovery community retake early discoveries from animal-gate milestones to human-first decision-making through collaborative dialogue.
This year’s Advances in Cell-based Screening program will feature four structured sessions that discuss the biology involved at scale and complexity. in vitro We discuss models, redesigning assay pipelines to process large amounts of multidimensional cell-based reads, and how AI and ML transform complex cellular data and enable predictions. There will also be poster awards for early career professionals, AstraZeneca site tours, exhibit halls, and opportunities to network with experts across the cell-based discovery continuum.
Professor Hazel Screen specializes in organ-on-a-chip technology for investigating the pathogenesis of health and disease in the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. Her research investigates the relationship between structure and function in healthy and pathological tissues and their impact on cellular metabolism, developing new models to explore fundamental tissue mechanics and biology questions, as well as avenues for new treatments and drug development. She served as co-director of the Center for Predictive in vitro He serves as a model at QMUL and leads the Next Generation Organ-on-a-Chip Technology EPSRC Doctoral Training Center (COaCT), a UKRI and industry funded initiative to train future leaders in this field. Professor Screen also contributes to shaping policy and regulation in the field of forecasting. in vitro Science. She talks.”Predictive in vitro models: Addressing challenges and exploiting opportunities in preclinical testing” he said during his presentation on the first day.
Fredrik Edfeldt, conference director of ELRIG and director of mechanistic biology and profiling at AstraZeneca, said: “What I’m really excited about at this year’s conference is that we have a very forward-looking program: how we can enable the post-animal paradigm and embrace AI. We are honored to have Professor Hazel Screen and Dr. Dave Powell share their insights in their keynote speeches. We look forward to welcoming ELRIG’s drug discovery community to Gothenburg.”
Sam Barichievy, conference director of ELRIG and senior director of reagents and assays Sweden at AstraZeneca, added: “I’m most excited about the moment our field is in right now: scaling up the relevant cell biology and the intelligence extracted from it by AI. We look forward to practical and impactful discussions about deep learning for complex imaging, multidimensional data pipelines, and what’s needed to engineer cellular assay workflows to be faster, more predictable, and human-first.”
Professor Hazel Screen, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Queen Mary University of London, said: “ELRIG provides a unique opportunity to discuss pioneering approaches to predictive in vitro systems. We are honored to have been invited to share the underlying biomedical engineering approaches that are incorporated into the development of organ-on-a-chip models and to reflect on the challenges associated with effectively applying these to both discovery science and therapeutic testing.”
Moving to a human-first, AI-enabled discovery pipeline requires significant structural changes across biology, data, and organizational practices. We are excited to collaborate with the ELRIG community on Advances in Cell-based Screening to discuss how AI can help navigate complex cellular data and improve predictive accuracy in efforts to deliver innovative treatments. ”
Dr. Dave Powell, President of Drug Discovery, Relation Therapeutics
