Mitigating Molecular Aggregation in Drug Discovery With Predictive Insights From Explainable AI
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Herein, we present the application of multi-channel graph attention network (MEGAN), our explainable AI (xAI) model, for the identification of small colloidally aggregating molecules (SCAMs). This work offers solutions to the long-standing problem of false positives caused by SCAMs in high-throughput screening for drug discovery and demonstrates the power of xAI in the classification of molecular properties that are not chemically intuitive based on our current understanding. We leverage xAI insights and molecular counterfactuals to design alternatives to problematic compounds in drug screening libraries. Additionally, we experimentally validate the MEGAN prediction classification for one of the counterfactuals and demonstrate the utility of counterfactuals for altering the aggregation properties of a compound through minor structural modifications. The integration of this method in high-throughput screening approaches will help combat and circumvent false positives, providing better lead molecules more rapidly and thus accelerating drug discovery cycles.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".