Florian Horenkamp
Biophysics Lab Head, Senior Principal Scientist Pfizer
Florian Horenkamp is Senior Principal Scientist and Biophysics Lab Head at Pfizer, where he leads biophysical strategy and assay innovation to support complex drug discovery programmes. With a background in structural biology and biochemistry from Yale, Florian brings deep expertise in orthogonal and solution-based biophysical methods, including ITC, fluorescence, FRET, mass spectrometry, SPR, CD, and DLS, to characterise challenging targets and protein interactions. An experienced mentor and scientific leader, he excels in developing and integrating robust assays when traditional approaches reach their limits. At the Summit, Florian will discuss alternative techniques that provide reliable binding insights.
Seminars
- Explore how combining complementary assays (SPR, ITC, NMR, crystallography, DSF, native MS, and DEL screening) enables robust validation of binding events
- Learn how multi-technique strategies can identify novel binding sites, confirm fragment hits, and map allosteric mechanisms, even for RNA-binding or otherwise difficult proteins
- Gain insight into how solution-based, structural, and label-free techniques can converge to tell a consistent story that strengthens confidence in hit identification, characterization, and progression
Biophysics offers an abundance of techniques and assays, each with their own benefits and challenges, but knowing which to use, when to use it, and how to evolve your assay strategy across discovery phases is a constant challenge. This interactive workshop brings together early discovery scientists from pharma and biotech to share practical decision-making frameworks for building high-confidence assay cascades.
Join this workshop to:
- Explore practical strategies for designing cascades that evolve with program maturity
- Uncover exclusive insights into trade-offs between throughput, resolution, and confidence in hit identification
- Discuss approaches for choosing between overlapping or orthogonal assays (e.g., SPR vs BLI vs ITC)
- Hear real-world examples from both pharma and biotechs of how assay source (fragment screens, DEL, HTS) and target type influence cascade design
- Extract tips to interpret conflicting data and avoid common pitfalls
Why Take Part?
Leave with practical insights on how to design, adapt, and troubleshoot their own screening workflows according to target class, modality, throughput needs, and data quality.
