MIKIW began in 1963, with the first meeting-in-miniature being held at the University of Iowa. At the time, the medicinal chemistry conference was just “MIKI”, an acronym to represent the original 4 schools that founded it. Departments of Medicinal Chemistry from the Universities of Minnesota, Illinois at Chicago, Kansas, and Iowa pioneered the meeting to connect medicinal chemists from around the midwest to share their own research as well as learn about new research happening in the field. Each year these universities rotate between hosts, with this year’s conference being hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison joined MIKI in 2018, and since then the conference name was changed to MIKIW.

MIKIW is the longest running and largest regional medicinal chemistry conference in the United States, and the conference is completely organized and led by graduate students at the host school each year. The meetings annually integrate over 200 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty members. For two days, students and faculty from multiple disciplines are exposed to a wide array of current medicinal chemistry research. MIKIW provides an excellent environment for scientists to share their research in the form of symposium talks and poster presentations.

MIKIW’s aim is to promote scientific discussion and the exchange of ideas between scientists at multiple universities regarding medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, chemical synthesis, bioanalytical chemistry, chemical biology, and drug metabolism. Graduate students are also given the opportunity to present their own research in the form of posters or oral presentations, which helps to develop and hone their scientific communication skills. MIKIW also includes a keynote address by an eminent scientist, which was implemented to the conference in 1966.