Mark your calendars for October 1-2, 2026, for the 6th annual Bringing Chemistry to Medicine Symposium. This hybrid event features talks by leading experts from around the globe working at the interface of chemical biology and biomedical sciences. Speakers represent expertise across various research areas, including therapeutic regulation of transcription and chromatin, AI, data science, and chemical biology.
The symposium is hosted by the St. Jude Chemical Biology and Therapeutics and the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center. The event is designed to advance collaboration and engagement in the emerging field of transcription-targeted therapeutics.
This symposium will be hosted in a hybrid format, giving you the option to attend in-person and to enjoy the enhanced networking and experience the beautiful St. Jude campus in Memphis, TN. As always, we also welcome virtual attendees to join us from around the world. To encourage broad participation from researchers around the world registration is free.
Speakers for the 2026 symposium will be announced soon.
Book your hotel room
Hotel Napoleon Memphis is the official hotel of 2026 Bringing Chemistry to Medicine. A special room block has been reserved at a rate of $114 a night. Book by August 31st , 2026 to utilize block rate to secure the discounted conference rate. Transportation will be provided via shuttle at the start of each day, and at the end to take guests to and from campus.
Scenes from the 2025 symposium
Watch our Archived Lectures
Each year since 2020, St. Jude has hosted exciting two-day events focused on Transcription Therapy and Chemical Biology and Therapeutics.
Past symposium speakers
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Name Institution Talk Title Vadim Backman, PhD Northwestern University Chromatin-encoded cellular transcriptional memory in cancer Steve Banik, PhD Stanford University Rewiring the mammalian interactome Ibrahim Cissé, PhD Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics Super-resolution imaging of transcription in living cells Jim Collins, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology Deep learning for antibiotic discovery Rong Fan, PhD Yale School of Medicine Ushering in a new era of human biology driven by novel spatial multi-omics Eric Fischer, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Advances in the systematic discovery of molecular glue degraders Anshul Kundaje, PhD Stanford University Deciphering regulatory syntax and genetic variation with deep learning models Luke Lavis, PhD Janelia Research Campus Designing, synthesizing, and sharing next-generation fluorophores Michael (Mike) Levine, PhD Princeton University 3D genome and the control of gene expression in development Elisa Oricchio, PhD École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Harnessing cancer and immune cell communication to identify new therapeutic targets Loic Royer, Dr. rer. nat Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco Building a virtual embryo, one cell at a time Paola Scaffidi, PhD Instituto Europeo di Oncologia (European Institute of Oncology) Network-level epigenetic alterations in cancer evolution Brenda Schulman, PhD Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Regulation by the ubiquitin-proteasome system Yang Shi, PhD Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, University of Oxford Chromatin regulation and cancer Christina Theodoris, MD, PhD Gladstone Institutes Transfer learning to enable predictions for network biology Georgios Skiniotis, PhD St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Structural insights into calcium sensing receptor signaling; from mechanism to therapeutics Angela Cacace, PhD Arvinas Breaking perceived drug discovery limits: PROTAC innovation advancements and future horizons in cancer and neuroscience Tommaso Cupido, PhD St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Targeting DEAD-box ATPases by Trapping Inactive Conformational States with Small Molecule Inhibitors Brendan Dwyer, PhD Stanford University Proteomic insights into mechanisms of transcriptional reprogramming molecular glues Steven Knutson, PhD Princeton University Photocatalytic µMap Proximity Labeling of HER2 Identifies Functional Interactors and Trastuzmab Resistance Mechanisms Nathaniel Mabe, PharmD, PhD Purdue University Destabilization of noncanonical PRC1 complexes via USP7 inhibition induces neuronal differentiation in neuroblastoma Asad Taherbhoy Foghorn Therapeutics, Inc Structural and functional basis of PU.1-BAF interaction enables targeting of lineage-specific transcription Rachel O'Rourke University of Michigan Unraveling the effects of eIF4E cap analogue inhibitors on cap-dependent translation to assess their therapeutic potential in cancer Emilee Patterson Vanderbilt University Prediction of Elicitor-Regulator Pairs To Enable Secondary Metabolite Discovery -
Name Institution Talk Title Anna Mapp, PhD University of Michigan A general strategy for drugging transcription factors Cheryl Arrowsmith, PhD University of Toronto, Princess Margaret Cancer Center Probing the human proteome for therapeutic opportunities Chuan He, PhD University of Chicago RNA methylation in gene expression regulation Emily Dykhuizen, PhD Purdue University Chemically Targeting Specific Chromatin Remodeling Subcomplexes in Cancer Kevan Shokat, PhD University of California, San Francisco Overcoming the Undruggable Nature of The Most Common Human Oncogene K-Ras Nada Jabado, PhD Mcgill University Oncohistones in disease: from Cancer to...beyond P.S. Arora, PhD New York University Rational design to hijack transcriptional protein-protein interactions Sara Buhrlage, PhD Dana Farber Cancer Institute Harnessing deubiquitinates for next-generation protein stability therapeutics Tony Kouzarides, PhD, FMedSci, FRS University of Cambridge Targeting RNA modifying enzymes in the treatment of cancer Gerald (Jerry) Crabtree, MD Stanford University School of Medicine Rewiring Cancer Drivers to Activate Apoptosis Jay Bradner, MD Gene Control Medicines David Baker ,PhD University of Washington Design of New Protein Function using deep learning Karen Adelman, PhD Harvard University Small Molecules Inhibitors Reveal Direct Targets of Chromatin Remodelers Jun Qi, PhD Dana Farber Cancer Institute Chemical Targeting of Epigenetically Regulated Transcriptional Networks Charles Roberts, MD, PhD Director, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Executive Vice President, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Chromatin Remodeler Mutations in Cancer: From Mechanisms to Emerging Therapies Rebecca Johnson University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Antagonist Development for Chromodomain-Helicase DNA-Binding Protein 1 (CHD1) Joshua Gruber, MD, PhD UT Southwestern Medical Center Acetyl-Click Screening Platform Identifies Small-Molecule and Peptide-based Inhibitors of Histone Acetyltransferase 1 (HAT1) Samantha Bevill, PhD Dana Farber Cancer Institute Impact of Supraphysiologic MDM2 Expression on P53-Independent Chromatin Networks and Therapeutic Responses in Sarcoma Deepak Nijhawan, MD, PhD UT Southwestern Medical Center Anticancer Benzoxaboroles Inhibit Pre-mRNA Processing by Direct Inhibition of CPSF3 Aseem Ansari, PhD Chair, Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Transcription Targeted Therapeutics Drew Adams, PhD Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Targeting the Chromatin-Binding of XPO1 Disrupts NFAT and T Cell Activation Arabinda Chaudhuri, PhD Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata In Vivo Dendritic Cells Targeted DNA Vaccination in Combination with Tumor-Selective Chemotherapy Eradicates Established Mouse Melanoma Gihoon Lee, PhD Princeton University Time-Resolved Protein Synthesis Reveals Distinct Phases of Oncogenic Signaling and Identifies the ‘Achilles Heel’ of a Liver Cancer FL-HCC -
Name Institution Talk Title Scott Armstrong, MD, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Therapeutic targeting of chromatin complexes in cancer Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School , Broad Institute of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Etiology and Impact of Methylation Changes in Cancer Clifford Brangwynne, PhD Princeton University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Intracellular Phase Transitions: The Fluidity of Biological Function Jolanta Grembecka, PhD University of Michigan Therapeutic targeting of epigenetic modifiers in leukemia Tanja Mittag, PhD St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Transcriptional hubs or condensates? Fraydoon Rastinejad, PhD Nuffield Department of Medicine Visualizing Drug-Binding Pockets in Transcription Factors Kenneth Zaret, PhD Pennsylvania State University Overcoming Chromatin Barriers for Transcription Therapies Ray Deshaies, PhD Amgen The awesome power of synthetic organic chemistry in drug development Matt Disney, PhD Scripps Research Sequence-based design of small molecules targeting RNA structures to manipulate and study disease biology Ron Dror, PhD Stanford University Molecular simulation and machine learning for the design of finely tuned drugs Dorothee Kern, PhD Brandeis University Protein dynamics at the heart of new cancer drug design approaches Judith Klinman, PhD University of California, Berkeley Integrating Protein Dynamics into Enzyme Function David Moore, PhD University of California, Berkeley Regulation of Liver Energy Balance by Nutrient-sensing Nuclear Receptors Peter Schultz, PhD Scripps Research A Chemist’s Foray into Translational Research Derek Tan, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering SEAKERs: Targeted Cellular Micropharmacies that Generate Small-Molecule Drugs in situ Daniel Blair, PhD University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Modularized Molecule Making -
Name Institution Talk Title M. Madan Babu, PhD, FRSC St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Variation in GPCR Signalling : Implications for drug discovery Suzanne J. Baker, PhD St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Histone Mutations and Disrupted Development in Pediatric High-Grade Glioma James E. Bradner, MD Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) Chemical control of gene expression Andrea Califano, PhD JP Sulzberger Columbia Genome Center, Columbia University Elucidation and Pharmacologic Targeting of Single Cell State Maintenance Mechanisms Francesca Ciccarelli, PhD King’s College London Predictors of response to cancer immunotherapy: beyond Tumour Mutational Burden Patrick Cramer, PhD Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry Recent insights into chromatin transcription Craig M. Crews, PhD Yale University PROTAC-mediated Protein Degradation: A New Therapeutic Modality Pedro R. Cutillas, PhD Barts Cancer Institute and Queen Mary University of London Rationalising anti-cancer drug responses using proteomics and machine learning: towards next generation precision medicine Cigall Kadoch, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Structure and Function of Mammalian SWI/SNF Chromatin Remodeling Complexes in Human Cancer William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Three Possible Paths to Targeting Undruggable Transcription Factors Mitchell Lazar, MD, PhD University of Pennsylvania Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Personalization of Transcriptional Therapy With Drugs Targeting Nuclear Receptors Jonathan D. Licht, MD University of Florida Health Cancer Center NSDZ in lymphoid malignancy Craig W. Lindsley, PhD Vanderbilt University Discovery and Development of GPCR Allosteric Ligands: From concept to clinic Debora S. Marks, PhD Harvard Medical School Prediction and design of proteins with neural machines Marvin J. Miller, PhD University of Notre Dame Design, Syntheses and Studies of New Antibiotics Anjana Rao, PhD La Jolla Institute for Immunology Transcriptional networks in tumour-infiltrating T cells Tobin R. Sosnick, PhD University of Chicago Prediction of a protein’s Free energy surface with validation using hydrogen/deuterium exchange Professor Dame Janet Thornton European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) Computational Enzymology: The structure, function and evolution of enzymes -
Name Institution Talk Title Scott Blanchard St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Bridging the Gap Between Biomolecular Structure and Function Through Single-Molecule Imaging Richard Lee St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Antibiotic Discovery at St. Jude Jun Liu Yale Schol of Medicine Painting Chromatin with Synthetic Protein Chemistry Angela Koehler Massachusetts Institute of Technology Attenuating Oncogenic Transcription with Small Molecules Taosheng Chen St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Chemical Transcription Modulators of Promiscuous Xenobiotic Receptors Shaomeng Wang University of Michigan Medical School Induced Protein Degradation as a Therapeutic Strategy Marcus Fischer St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Bridge Over Troubled Water Networks – Binding and Garfunkel Ivet Bahar University of Pittsburgh Network Models in Biology: From Molecular Machinery to Chromosomal Dynamics, to Systems Pharmacology Tarun Kapoor The Rockefeller University Chemical Biology of Drug Resistance James Chen Stanford University Targeting Colorectal Cancer with Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Inhibitors Zoran Rankovic St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Targeted Protein Degradation Platform Phil Chamberlain History and Future of Thalidomide Analogs in Human Health Anang Shelat and Phil Potter St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Bromodomain-selective BETi as Pediatric Anticancer Agents Tudor Moldoveanu St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital Probing the Mechanism of Mitochondrial Apoptosis Initiation
Transcription Therapy at St. Jude
Over decades of research, scientists in the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center and others have discovered that several pediatric cancers emerge due to disruption in chromatin and epigenetic states and dysfunctional transcriptional regulation. While gene regulation in general has long been considered “undruggable,” scientists in the St. Jude Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics (CBT) have created synthetic gene regulators and are devising new chemical approaches to inhibit or degrade malfunctioning components of chromatin and gene regulatory machineries. This work builds on the history of St. Jude as a pioneer in the therapeutic use of small molecules targeting gene regulation, most notably the application of glucocorticoid receptor agonists into chemotherapy regimens for pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (ALL). The drugging of this transcription factor helped to dramatically increase overall survival rates for newly diagnosed ALL to 94% at St. Jude.
Learn more about transcription therapy at St. Jude Learn more