Accurate computational prediction of T cell receptor (TCR) antigen specificity would transform the study of T cell biology and enable scalable immune engineering, yet existing models lack sufficient sensitivity and specificity for broad applications. A major limitation is the absence of rigorously defined, unseen benchmark datasets that allow unbiased evaluation of model performance and generalizability.
arXiv:2606. 30902v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: T cell receptor (TCR)-epitope binding prediction is essential for understanding adaptive immunity and developing immunotherapies.
By Jiarui Li, Zixiang Yin, Yunbei Zhang, Janet Wang, Samuel J. Landry, Zhengming Ding, Ramgopal R. Mettu
CaliPPer is a post‑hoc framework that calibrates and predicts the performance of binding‑prediction models by combining a multi‑chain Sample‑to‑Domain Distance (S2DD) metric with distance‑aware Bayesian recalibration. It operates at three resolutions—generalisability score, aggregate performance prediction, and per‑sample confidence—achieving strong distance‑performance correlations (|r| = 0.80–0.92) and low prediction errors for AUROC, AP, and F1. In retrospective analyses of five published studies, CaliPPer increased true discovery rates, improving AUROC by up to +0.20 on unseen epitopes and variants and raising confirmed neoantigen findings from 0/5 to 3/5.
By Jian-Qing Zheng, Hantao Lou, Zinan Yin, Sam Farrar, Yuze Zhou, Elie Antoun, Xiangxi Wang, Xuetao Cao, Tao Dong
The paper introduces Explainability from Training (EFT), a model‑agnostic method that tracks how deep learning models learn and organize evidence during training. EFT is applied to four leading T cell receptor‑epitope prediction models, revealing distinct learning trajectories for CNNs and transformers, conflicts between TCR alpha and beta chain evidence, and differences in feature preferences when using real versus predicted structural data. The authors also present a new benchmark, TCR‑XAI2, comprising 388 experimentally resolved TCR‑epitope structures and several predicted models to evaluate these insights.
By Jiarui Li, Zixiang Yin, Samuel Landry, Zhengming Ding, Ramgopal Mettu
arXiv:2603. 13431v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Computational antibody design has seen rapid methodological progress, with dozens of deep generative methods proposed in the past three years, yet the field lacks a standardized benchmark for fair comparison and model development.
By Mansoor Ahmed, Nadeem Taj, Imdad Ullah Khan, Hemanth Venkateswara, Murray Patterson
arXiv:2606. 28659v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: High-fidelity molecular docking simulations can produce biologically relevant estimates of epitope-receptor binding affinity but are computationally expensive and therefore limit the number of candidates that can be screened for vaccine design.
By Aspen Erlandsson Brisebois, Zahed Khatooni, Connor Burbridge, Brook Byrns, Heather L. Wilson, Sureesh Tikoo, Steven Rayan, Gordon Broderick