arXiv Machine Learning

Sample Efficient Generative Optimization for Molecular Design

arXiv:2607. 12488v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Molecular optimization in drug discovery, materials design, and catalysis requires searching vast chemical spaces under tight evaluation budgets, since high-fidelity oracles and experimental measurements are costly.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 26

Target-Aware Bandit Allocation for Scalable Surrogate Optimization in Chemical Space

arXiv:2606. 26657v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Identifying high-utility candidates from massive discrete spaces under expensive evaluations is a recurring challenge across the sciences, with structure-based drug discovery as a prominent example.

By Mohammad Haddadnia, Yuvan Chali, Abhilash Jayaraj, Constance Kraay, Joana Reis, Felix Strieth-Kalthoff, Haribabu Arthanari
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 7

Small Molecule Optimization with Large Language Models

The paper introduces Mol-E, an evolutionary algorithm that leverages large language models trained on molecular data to generate candidate molecules. Mol-E achieves state‑of‑the‑art performance on the Practical Molecular Optimization benchmark, scoring 17.500 in the task‑agnostic regime and 20.551 in the task‑informed regime. It also outperforms baseline methods in multi‑property optimization tasks involving docking against DRD2, MK2, and AChE.

By Philipp Guevorguian, Menua Bedrosian, Tigran Fahradyan, Gayane Chilingaryan, Armen Aghajanyan, Hrant Khachatrian
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 7

On the Design Space of Discrete Diffusion Online Adaptation for Molecular Optimization

arXiv:2607. 02834v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Molecular optimization often starts from a pretrained generative model that captures a broad prior over valid molecular structures.

By Trevor Chen, Ariel Dai, Jason Yang, Riccardo De Santi, Daniel Khalil, Wenda Chu, Nate Gruver, Pranav Murugan, Alexander F. G. Goldberg, Maruan Al-Shedivat, Yisong Yue
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 18

Large Discovery Models: Empirically-grounded Model-Based Open-Ended Search

arXiv:2608. 15669v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Scientific discovery often involves optimising expensive-to-evaluate objectives over vast, structured, and open-ended hypothesis spaces, such as molecules, protein sequences, and computer programs.

By Zhongwei Yu, Yan Song, Xue Yan, Anjie Liu, Xingyu Lu, Yihang Chen, Huichi Zhou, Siyuan Guo, Luoyang Sun, Sihan Chen, Xiangning Yu, Jun Wang
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 26

Bayesian Optimization for General Reaction Conditions

arXiv:2502. 18966v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: General chemical reaction conditions that achieve consistently high performance across multiple substrates are important for practical applications such as library synthesis and high-throughput experimentation.

By Stefan P. Schmid, Ella Miray Rajaonson, Cher Tian Ser, Mohammad Haddadnia, Shi Xuan Leong, Al\'an Aspuru-Guzik, Agustinus Kristiadi, Kjell Jorner, Felix Strieth-Kalthoff
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 7

Training Large Language Models for Small-Molecule Design with Synthetic Task Scaling

The paper explores how large language models (LLMs) can be trained for small-molecule drug design by using synthetic tasks that are cheaper to evaluate. By employing a curriculum that gradually increases task difficulty, the authors demonstrate that LLMs can learn design strategies that outperform larger models on structure-based lead optimization. This approach shows that scaling post‑training with synthetic tasks can effectively adapt LLMs to high‑cost experimental scenarios that are otherwise infeasible to train on directly.

By Frank Hu, Shriram Chennakesavalu, Zichen Wang, Patricia Suriana, Bodhi Vani, Kirill Shmilovich, Kangway Chuang, Colin Grambow
arXiv AI
Aug 6

Out-Of-The-Loop Multi-Fidelity Bayesian Optimization

arXiv:2608. 04113v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Black-box optimization is a ubiquitous problem in science and engineering, often dealing with expensive objective functions with cheaper lower-fidelity proxies available.

By Gustavo Sutter, Hao Wang, Luis Ricardez-Sandoval, Pascal Poupart, Agustinus Kristiadi