Lukasz Olenginski
Senior Scientist, Screening & Assay Development Mol Horizon, Inc.
Dr. Lukasz Olenginski is a Senior Scientist at Mol Horizon, where he leads discovery campaigns that integrate cheminformatics, machine learning, and experimental screening to develop predictive frameworks for next-generation RNA-targeted therapeutics. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2022 under Professor Kwaku Dayie and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado, Boulder with Professor Rob Batey from 2022 to 2026. His work combines synthetic chemistry, structural biology, chemical biology, and computational methods to investigate RNA-targeted ligands and the physicochemical principles that govern RNA-small molecule recognition and guide therapeutic design.
Seminars
The chemical space explored for RNA-targeted small molecules remains relatively narrow and heavily influenced by existing patents, public datasets, and legacy screening collections. While these efforts have produced important advances, they have also concentrated discovery around a limited set of chemical frameworks and design principles. As more organizations pursue splicing modulation, RNA degradation, translational control, and direct RNA binding, there is growing interest in identifying chemical matter that extends beyond familiar RNA-targeted chemotypes while remaining productive, interpretable, and actionable for discovery.
This workshop will bring together medicinal chemists, computational chemists, screening scientists, chemical biologists, and RNA drug discovery leaders to discuss how the field can broaden RNA-focused chemical space.
Topics for discussion include:
- Examining where current RNA-targeted chemistry is concentrated across patents, public datasets, commercial libraries, and internal collections
- Exploring how chemically diverse yet information-rich chemical spaces can improve both hit discovery and the extraction of actionable design principles
- Comparing chemical requirements across splicing modulation, RNA degradation, translational inhibition, and direct RNA binding
- Discussing how molecular glue degrader thinking could inspire new approaches to RNA or protein depletion
- Evaluating how public structures, shape-based searching, cheminformatics, and AI can support broader chemical exploration
