03-Jun-2025
Instruct-ERIC has a long history of collaboration with partners outside Europe. These international connections have allowed researchers worldwide to share and grow their expertise in structural biology.
This is why Instruct have co-organised the Integrative Structural Biology meets Drug Discovery Workshop at the Brazilian Centre for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), alongside EU-OPENSCREEN, and the CNPEM structural biology and drug discovery teams.
The workshop, running 19-23 May 2025, took place at the CNPEM campus. More than 60 attendees were treated to talks from experts on NMR, X-ray crystallography techniques, cryo-EM and cryo-ET, drug discovery methodologies, as well as the current and upcoming direction of AI in both structural biology and drug discovery.
The link between both disciplines was demonstrated by ERIC’s Instruct and EU-OPENSCREEN, but also between the structural biology and drug discovery teams at CNPEM, led by Rodrigo Portugal and Daniela Trivella, respectively. The link is heightened by the European project coordinated by Instruct, with significant partnership with EU-OPENSCREEN, Fragment-Screen, which seeks to develop new instrumentation and technologies in fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD).
A selection of the Instruct structural biology speakers (left to right): Lizbe Koekemoer, John Dolan, and José Maria Valpuesta
Speakers from both Europe and Latin America were invited to talk at the workshop. From Instruct, speakers included:
These speakers from Europe were in addition to several outstanding structural biology experts in Latin America, providing dual experience in the key techniques. After three days of talks, it was off to the lab for the attendees, who were invited from across Latin America.
Course co-organisers (left to right): Rodrigo Portugal, Daniela Trivella, Bahne Stechmann.
The workshop demonstrates the impact of collaboration between European research infrastructures with Latin America. Researchers worldwide are invited to apply to Instruct for funded access to structural biology technologies in our European centres of Excellence. Periodically, Instruct launches dedicated calls for funding for access for international researchers – keep up with our international collaboration page for more information on the calls.
Overall, we thank our co-organisers, CNPEM and EU-OPENSCREEN, to put together an excellent workshop, which will hopefully see continued and fruitful collaborations long into the future!
Attendees of the practical sessions of the course.
