AIDD Workshop at ICANN 2026

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The 3rd Workshop on AI in Drug Discovery (the 3rd “AIDD” Workshop, https://e-nns.org/icann2026/the-3rd-workshop-on-ai-in-drug-discovery/) will be held in Padua, Italy as part of the 35th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN 2026). This workshop seeks cutting-edge contributions in the rapidly evolving field of AI-driven drug discovery. We invite submissions on a broad range of topics at the intersection of machine learning and drug discovery, including generative models, eXplainable AI (XAI), uncertainty quantification, reaction informatics and synthetic route prediction, quantum machine learning for reactivity, methodologies for mining large compound data sets, federated learning, analysis of HTS data, multimodal and equivariant neural networks, foundation models, LLM and Agentic AI applications in chemistry and life sciences, co-folding (incl. protein structure prediction and protein design) models and other topics related to the use of machine learning (ML) in chemistry. This workshop aims to bring together machine learning experts, computational chemists and chemoinformaticians working on the development and application of ML in chemistry, environmental health and (eco)toxicology.

Submission Instructions

Contributions (full papers or extended abstracts) should be submitted through the regular ICANN submission system at https://e-nns.org/icann2026/submission by deadlines indicated on its web site https://e-nns.org/icann2026/important-dates. Select track “Workshop: AI in Drug Discovery”.

Important Dates 
Conference dates: 14th – 17th September 2026 
Deadline for full papers and extended abstracts via submission system: June 6th 
Notification of acceptance: July 10th
Camera ready: July 18th

The authors of articles/abstracts submitted to the 3rd AIDD workshop will be invited to submit their full articles to the special issue of J. Cheminformatics by the 31th of December 2026. This workshop is partially supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network European Industrial Doctorate “Explainable AI for Molecules” (AiChemist https://aichemist.eu).

Keynote:  Prof. Artem Cherkasov, UBC, Canada, Replacing  Drug Discovery  "Expert in The Loop” with AI Agent

Organizers:  

Igor V. Tetko, Helmholtz Munich, Germany 
Ola Engkvist, AstraZeneca, Sweden 
Matteo Aldeghi, Bayer, USA
Djork-Arné Clevert, Pfizer Worldwide Research Development and Medical, Berlin, German 
Marc Bianciotto, Sanofi, Paris, France 
Katya Ahmad, Helmholtz Munich, Germany