This event is organized by the University of Toronto’s Acceleration Consortium.

Note: Event details may change. Please refer to the Acceleration Consortium’s events page for the most current information.

What happens when nature and AI work in harmony to discover new medicines? 
Join us January 21, 1:30 p.m. ET for the AC’s first seminar of 2026, featuring Eric Brown (McMaster University). 

This seminar will explore how a new platform is unlocking nature’s chemical diversity to drive breakthroughs in neurology, cancer, and beyond. Learn how integrating microbial collections, metabolomics, high-content cell and animal screening, and machine learning can systematically connect chemical diversity to therapeutic potential.  

Location: in-person at 700 University Avenue, 10th floor seminar room and online via Zoom

Talk title: AI guided natural product drug discovery

Abstract: Many of today’s medicines originate from natural products, but their discovery has slowed due to difficulties in accessing and understanding their complexity. This talk introduces an AI-guided platform that brings new life to natural product drug discovery. By combining microbial collections, metabolomics, high-content cell and animal screening, and machine learning, the platform connects chemical diversity with therapeutic potential in a systematic way. This seminar will highlight recent discoveries, including a novel compound that promotes synapse formation and neural resilience, with applications in neurology and cancer. These advances show how artificial intelligence can unlock nature’s hidden medicines and accelerate the path to breakthrough therapies 

Bio: Dr. Eric Brown is a Distinguished University Professor at McMaster University in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences and a member of the M.G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has received a number of other awards including the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Murray Award for career achievement. 

Dr. Brown is a former department Chair and was also the founding Director of the Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization program at McMaster. He has served a variety of national and international associations, including a term as President of the Canadian Society of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology. Dr. Brown is known for a large body of top-flight research in antibiotics and is an innovator in diverse areas of drug discovery, using tools of chemical and systems biology to probe the complexity that underlies disease. He has been active in commercializing his laboratory’s research and is especially curious about technology and discoveries with promise in creating breakthrough therapies