Microsoft Research

Improving synthesis prediction of small molecules at scale with RetroChimera

The article discusses RetroChimera, a predictive model developed by Microsoft Research that improves the prediction of small molecule synthesis at scale. It highlights how the model can accelerate chemical synthesis, enabling researchers to explore a broader range of molecules. The post appears in a Nature paper and emphasizes the model’s potential to streamline the creation of custom-made molecules for medicine, materials, and agriculture.

arXiv AI
Aug 10

Strategy-first synthesis planning for complex natural products

arXiv:2608. 07454v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The total synthesis of a complex molecule is among the most demanding intellectual and experimental feats in chemistry: a chemist must plan many steps ahead for how to assemble simple building blocks into an intricate target, devise backup strategies, and anticipate procedural challenges.

By Daniel Armstrong, Xuan-Vu Nguyen, Octavian Susanu, Gabriel Gibberd, Th\'eo A. Neukomm, Tadd\"aus Strunden, Dan Forster, Morgane Delattre, Shawn Teh, Cl\'ement Rols, John Federice, Hayden Leatherwood, M. Lavelle Barnes, Maarten R. Dobbelaere, Peter Wipf, Jon T. Njardarson, Jieping Zhu, Philippe Schwaller
arXiv AI
Jun 2

When Single Answer Is Not Enough: Rethinking Single-Step Retrosynthesis Benchmarks for LLMs

arXiv:2602. 03554v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Recent progress has expanded the use of large language models (LLMs) in drug discovery, including synthesis planning.

By Bogdan Zagribelnyy, Ivan Ilin, Maksim Kuznetsov, Nikita Bondarev, Mathieu Reymond, Roman Schutski, Thomas MacDougall, Rim Shayakhmetov, Zulfat Miftakhutdinov, Mikolaj Mizera, Vladimir Aladinskiy, Alex Aliper, Alex Zhavoronkov
arXiv AI
Aug 20

Training Chemical Plausibility-Aware Large Language Models for Single-Step Retrosynthesis

The paper introduces Top‑K prompting as a training and inference strategy to better capture the diverse, plausible predictions inherent in single‑step retrosynthesis. Using an ultra‑large dataset (CREED‑CCV‑2+USPTO‑XL) of ~45.6 million verified reactions, the authors train the Chemistry Constraint‑Consistent Language Model (C3LM). With fine‑tuning that incorporates ChemCensor‑based and novelty‑oriented rewards, C3LM achieves state‑of‑the‑art performance on the OOD URSA‑expert‑2026 benchmark and demonstrates complementary reaction space exploration compared to conventional models, suggesting benefits for ensemble‑based retrosynthesis systems.

By Bogdan Zagribelnyy, Ivan Ilin, Nikita Bondarev, Maksim Kuznetsov, Mathieu Reymond, Vladimir Aladinskiy, Alex Aliper, Alex Zhavoronkov
arXiv AI
Jul 17

RetroAgent: Harnessing LLMs to Search Over Structured Memory for Agentic Retrosynthesis Planning

arXiv:2607. 14512v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multi-step retrosynthesis planning seeks to decompose a target molecule into commercially available building blocks through a sequence of feasible reactions.

By Yanqiao Zhu, Jingru Gan, Xiaoqi Sun, Fang Sun, Yidan Shi, Md Mofijul Islam, Chao Shang, Wenhao Gao, Connor W. Coley, Yizhou Sun, Wei Wang
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 2

SynLaD: Latent Diffusion for Generating Synthesizable Molecules Conditioned on 3D Pharmacophore Profiles

arXiv:2607. 01105v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We present SynLaD, a latent diffusion framework for small-molecule generation that unifies ligand-based drug design objectives (what to make) with synthetic accessibility (how to make it).

By Miruna Cretu, John Bradshaw, Patricia Suriana, Saeed Saremi, Omar Mahmood, Kirill Shmilovich, Kangway Chuang, Vishnu Sresht, Colin Grambow