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Record W4414857964 · doi:10.1073/pnas.2415666122

Manifold-constrained nucleus-level denoising diffusion model for structure-based drug design

2025· article· en· W4414857964 on OpenAlexaff
Shengchao Liu, Liang Yan, Weitao Du, Weiyang Liu, Zhuoxinran Li, Hongyu Guo, Christian Borgs, Jennifer Chayes, Anima Anandkumar

Bibliographic record

VenueProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldComputer Science
TopicComputational Drug Discovery Methods
Canadian institutionsNational Research Council CanadaUniversity of Toronto
Fundersnot available
Keywordsvan der Waals forcePairwise comparisonManifold (fluid mechanics)Nonlinear dimensionality reductionDiffusionSurface (topology)Boundary (topology)Diffusion map

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

AI models have shown great potential in structure-based drug design, generating ligands with high binding affinities. However, existing models have often overlooked a crucial physical prior: Atoms must maintain a minimum pairwise distance to avoid atomic collision, a phenomenon governed by the balance of attractive and repulsive forces. To mitigate such atomic collisions, we propose NucleusDiff. It enforces spatial distance constraints between atomic nuclei and auxiliary mesh points placed on a spherical surface around each atom, approximating van der Waals boundaries to reduce atomic collisions. We quantitatively evaluate NucleusDiff using the CrossDocked2020 dataset and a COVID-19 therapeutic target, demonstrating that NucleusDiff reduces collision rate by up to 100.00% and enhances binding affinity by up to 22.16%, surpassing state-of-the-art models for structure-based drug design. We also provide qualitative analysis through manifold sampling, visually confirming the effectiveness of NucleusDiff in reducing atomic collisions and improving binding affinities.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not 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.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.003
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Simulation or modeling · Consensus signal: Simulation or modeling
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.008
Threshold uncertainty score0.016

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.003
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0000.001
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0020.000

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.

Opus teacher head0.081
GPT teacher head0.341
Teacher spread0.261 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designSimulation or modeling
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

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".

Quick stats

Citations4
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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Same venueProceedings of the National Academy of SciencesSame topicComputational Drug Discovery MethodsFrench-language works237,207