arXiv Machine Learning

HEDGEHOG: Hierarchical Evaluation of Drug Generators Through Rigorous Filtration

arXiv:2607. 13155v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Generative molecular models can support early drug discovery by proposing new candidate compounds de novo.

arXiv AI
Jul 21

Do Language Models Dream of Binding Molecules? Benchmarking LLMs under Spatial Constraints

arXiv:2607. 18144v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Structure-based drug design (SBDD) leverages the 3D structure of protein targets, often complemented by other spatial constraints, to generate candidate binding molecules.

By Thomas MacDougall, Maksim Kuznetsov, Roman Schutski, Rim Shayakhmetov, Maxim Malkov, Vladimir Aladinskiy, Alex Aliper, Alex Zhavoronkov
arXiv AI
Sep 21

SpecOpt: Contact-Diff Reasoning for Agentic Molecule Optimization Toward Binding Specificity

SpecOpt is a new molecular design task that optimizes the binding specificity of existing drugs by making constrained structural modifications. The method uses an agentic framework that docks a compound against its intended target and known off‑targets, compares residue‑aware atom‑protein contacts, and feeds the differential interactions to a large language model to propose changes. On a benchmark of 915 compounds, SpecOpt increased the target‑off‑target binding gap for 84.8% of cases while preserving drug‑like properties and structural similarity.

By Thao Nguyen, Heng Ji
arXiv AI
Jun 2

Probe Before You Edit: Probing-Guided Molecular Optimization for LLM Agents in Structure-Based Drug Design

arXiv:2606. 00555v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Structure-based drug design increasingly employs LLM agents to iteratively refine ligands against a target pocket, yet a viable ligand must satisfy two often-conflicting objectives -- binding affinity and druggability -- which single optimization steps rarely improve together.

By Zaifei Yang, Weiyu Chen, Yaqing Wang, James Kwok
arXiv AI
Aug 13

A Modular Agentic Framework for Synthetically Constrained Multi-Objective Hit-to-Lead Optimization

arXiv:2608. 11483v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Hit-to-lead optimization requires iterative design of hit analogs across competing potency, selectivity, physicochemical, pharmacokinetic, safety, and synthetic constraints.

By Kelvin P. Idanwekhai, Enes Kelestemur, Benjamin Strickland, Matthew Hart, Steini Davidsson, Angelos Angelopoulos, Ron Alterovitz, Marcello DeLuca, Alexander Tropsha
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 16

Generative Molecular Design with Steerable and Granular Synthesizability Control

arXiv:2505. 08774v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Designing molecules that are both property-optimal and readily synthesizable is a central challenge in drug discovery.

By Jeff Guo, V\'ictor Sabanza-Gil, Olha Semenenko, Oleksii Hrabovskyi, Mykola Protopopov, Anna Kapeliukha, Oleksandr Mosia, Sofiia Hatych, Diana Alieksieieva, Tom Nelis, Patrick Molliet, Helena Sol\'e-\`Avila, Valentas Olikauskas, Nina Aregger, Irina Morozova, Joseph Schmidt, Zlatko Jon\v{c}ev, Olga Tarkhanova, Petro Borysko, Jerome Waser, Bruno Correia, Jeremy Luterbacher, Philippe Schwaller
arXiv AI
Sep 3

ProbeMatchDTI: Probe-Driven Multi-Scale Biochemical Pattern Matching for Drug-Target Interaction Prediction

ProbeMatchDTI is a new framework for drug‑target interaction prediction that uses probe‑driven pattern matching to preserve weak biochemical signals. It introduces IterProbe, which retains contextual states across refinement depths and selects them with learnable probes, and BindingProbe, which models drug‑protein complementarity at both local and whole‑pair levels. Experiments show that ProbeMatchDTI outperforms existing methods, improving AUC‑ROC by 2.0% on BindingDB and 0.5% on DrugBank, and its predictions can be integrated into downstream drug‑discovery workflows.

By Quan Hao, Mengyue Fan, Zifan Dong, Youru Li, Jianduo Zhao, Lechuan Xu, Hao Zhang, Fei Xia, Jigang Wang, Chong Qiu, Liguo Zhang
arXiv AI
Sep 7

NEAT-POCKET: Pocket-Conditioned Autoregressive 3D Molecular Generation with a Neighborhood-Guided Set Transformer

NEAT-POCKET is a pocket‑conditioned extension of the autoregressive NEAT model that generates 3D molecules atom by atom within protein binding pockets, maintaining atom permutation invariance and explicitly modeling hydrogen atoms. It outperforms existing baselines on the CrossDocked and SPINDR datasets, achieving competitive structure‑based generation performance while sampling significantly faster. The model also supports pocket‑conditioned fragment completion, a capability directly useful for lead optimization and scaffold elaboration in drug design.

By Roxane Axel Jacob, Daniel Rose, Thierry Langer, Johannes Kirchmair