The program of the 2026 ISQBP President’s meeting will begin on Monday, June 15 at 13:30 with an opening ceremony and will end on Thursday, June 18 at 14:00 after a closing ceremony during which the poster prizes will be awarded and a window of free time for lunch. The full program will be available here

Monday 15.06.2026    
13:30 - 14:00 Opening ceremony    
14:00 - 18:15 SESSION I: NUCLEIC ACIDS ACROSS SCALES AND TIMES    
14:00 - 14:25 Giulia Palermo University of California Riverside, USA “Title TBA”
14:25 - 14:50 Jan Huertas University of Cambridge, UK “Multiscale simulations reveal molecular mechanisms of chromatin organisation”
14:50 - 15:15 Anna Panchenko Queen’s University, Canada “Key Challenges in Modeling Protein–DNA Interactions in Chromatin”
15:15 - 15:30 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
15:30 - 16:00 COFFEE BREAK    
16:00 - 16:25 Remo Rohs University of Southern California, USA “Title TBA”
16:25 - 16:50 Ioan Andricioaei University of California, Irvine, USA “Computing large-and-slow DNA motions from fast sampling of rare conformational transitions”
16:50 - 17:05 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
17:05 - 17:30 REFRESHMENTS/SNACKS    
17:30 - 18:15 COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY AWARD LECTURE    
  Modesto Orozco IRB Barcelona, Spain “A Journey Through DNA”
19:00 - open DINNER/NETWORKING    


Tuesday 16.06.2026    
09:00 - 12:30 SESSION II: FORCE FIELDS FOR BIOMOLECULES    
09:00 - 09:25 Alex MacKerell University of Maryland, USA “Ongoing developments in the Classical Drude Oscillator Polarizable Force Field”
09:25 - 09:50 Jiří Šponer Institute of Biophysics, Brno, Czech Republic “Atomistic Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Nucleic Acids: Force Field Advances and Issues”
09:50 - 10:15 Thomas Cheatham III University of Utah, USA “Title TBA”
10:15 - 10:30 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
10:30 - 11:00 COFFEE BREAK    
11:00 - 11:25 Petr Jurečka Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic “New AMBER Force Fields for More Reliable DNA and Protein–DNA Simulations”
11:25 - 11:50 Paulo Cesar Telles de Souza Laboratoire de Biologie et Modélisation de la Cellule, CNRS, Lyon, France “From Mechanism to Design: Coarse-Grained and Machine-Learning Approaches to Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery”
11:50 - 12:15 Adrian Roitberg University of Florida, USA “Title TBA”
12:15 - 12:30 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
12:30 - 14:00 LUNCH    
14:00 - 17:30 SESSION III: BIOMOLECULAR INTERACTIONS AND COMPLEXITY    
14:00 - 14:25 Nathalie Reuter University of Bergen, Norway “Allosteric control of lipid transfer proteins by membrane lipids”
14:25 - 14:50 Ana Nicoleta Bondar University of Bucharest, Romania “Title TBA”
14:50 - 15:15 Bert de Groot Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Goettingen, Germany “Alchemical binding free energy calculations for ligand binding, protein allostery, post-translational modifications, and more”
15:15 - 15:30 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
15:30 - 16:00 COFFEE BREAK    
16:00 - 16:25 Martin Zacharias Technical University of Munich “Protein interaction modulation studied by ligand design and molecular simulations”
16:25 - 16:50 Marco De Vivo Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy “Decoding Biochemical Complexity with Simulations and AI-Enhanced Sampling”
16:50 - 17:15 Ioana Ilie University of Amsterdam “AI-enhanced molecular design of peptides regulating Bax activation”
17:15 - 17:30 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
17:30 - 19:00 POSTER SESSION I    
19:00 - open DINNER/NETWORKING    


Wednesday 17.06.2026    
09:00 - 15:30 SESSION IV: BIOMOLECULAR REACTIONS FROM QUANTUM TO CLASSIC    
09:00 - 09:25 Fahmi Himo Stockholm University, Sweden “Quantum Chemical Modeling of Enzyme Enantioselectivity”
09:25 - 09:50 Jean-Philip Piquemal Sorbonne Université, 75005 Paris, France “A Quantum Foundation Model for Accurate Atomistic Simulations in Drug Design”
09:50 - 10:15 Alexey Aleksandrov Institut polytechnique de Paris, France “Molecular Simulation and Experimental Insights into the Catalytic Mechanism of Fatty Acid Photodecarboxylase”
10:15 - 10:30 Nigel Richards Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Alachua, Florida, USA “Quantum Chemical Insights into Arginine Sidechain Modification”
10:30 - 11:00 COFFEE BREAK    
11:00 - 11:25 Alessandra Magistrato Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy “Title TBA”
11:25 - 11:50 Ruibin Liang Texas Tech University, USA “Understanding the quantum dynamics of photoactive proteins through multiscale simulations”
11:50 - 12:15 Jan Brezovsky Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland “Cracking the code of enzyme tunnels: understanding, predicting, and engineering hidden pathways”
12:15 - 12:30 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
12:30 - 14:00 LUNCH    
14:00 - 14:25 Paolo Carloni Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany “Title TBA”
14:25 - 14:50 Ulf Ryde Lund University, Sweden “Estimating ligand-binding affinities with quantum-mechanical methods”
14:50 - 15:15 Johan Aqvist Uppsala University, Sweden “Computational Design of the Temperature Dependence of Enzyme Reactions”
15:15 - 15:30 Maciej Szaleniec Jerzy Haber Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland “Tungsten-containing enzymes – new tools in the biotech toolbox. Modelling and challenges”
15:30 - 16:00 COFFEE BREAK    
16:00 - 18:00 SESSION V: FRONTIERS IN DRUG DESIGN    
16:00 - 16:25 William Jorgensen Yale University, USA “What’s New with Force Fields and Free Energy”
16:25 - 16:50 Dragos Horvarth Universite de Strasbourg, France “The Chemical Library Space: From Compound Chemography to Management of Portofolio of DNA-Encoded Libraries”
16:50 - 17:05 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
17:05 - 17:50 GILDA LOEW LECTURE    
  Zoe Cournia Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athena, Greece “Allostery in Drug Discovery: From MD to ML”
17:50 - 19:30 POSTER SESSION II    
20:00 - 02:00 CONFERENCE GALA DINNER    


Thursday 18.06.2026    
09:00 - 12:50 SESSION VI: FRONTIERS IN BIOMOLECULAR SIMULATIONS    
09:00 - 09:25 Carol Post Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA “Phosphorylation influence on protein conformational equilibrium with connections to functional outcomes”
09:25 - 09:50 Joanna Trylska University of Warsaw, Poland “Molecular dynamics in multi-dimensional space reveals how mutations reshape neomycin binding to the riboswitch”
09:50 - 10:15 Charles L. Brooks III University of Michigan, USA “Novel high-throughput methods for free energy calculations”
10:15 - 10:30 Nicolae Viorel Buchete University College Dublin, Ireland “Title TBA”
10:30 - 10:45 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
10:45 - 11:10 COFFEE BREAK    
11:00 - 11:15 Selected presentation Affiliation “Title TBA”
11:15 - 11:30 Laurentiu Spiridon Institute of Biochemistry, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania “Title TBA”
11:30 - 11:55 Klaus Liedl University of Innsbruck, Austria “From Canonical Structures to Conformational Ensembles: Physics-Based Modeling of Antibody Structure, Dynamics, and Developability in Solution”
11:55 - 12:20 Elinor Haglund University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA “Structural Plasticity in Chemokines Driven by Native and Non-Native Disulfide Bonds”
12:20 - 12:45 Roland Stote Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology, Strasbourg, France “Title TBA”
12:45 - 13:15 CLOSING CEREMONY / POSTER PRIZES