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A novel chemical discovery platform enabled by machine learning

Project description

Machine learning and AI at the service of chemical discovery

The discovery and formulation of new drugs, antivirals, antibiotics, catalysts, battery materials and in general chemicals with tailored properties require a fundamental paradigm shift that will lead us to search the uncharted waters of the vast chemical space. The EU-funded DISCOVERER project aims to promote that shift by starting with predefined parameters from which new chemical entities are designed through machine learning and AI-enabled algorithms. The novel concept will be integrated into a commercial platform. The project's main goal is to finalise the development of an alpha version of this "Chemical Space Machine" platform and set up its commercialisation strategy.

Objective

Computational design and discovery of molecules and materials relies on the exploration of increasingly growing chemical spaces. The discovery and formulation of new drugs, antivirals, antibiotics, catalysts, battery materials, and in general chemicals with tailored properties, require a fundamental paradigm shift to search in unchartered swaths of the vast chemical space. This is in stark contrast to current approaches, which start from (commercially available) libraries of compounds from various suppliers. Within the ERC Consolidator grant BeStMo (grant agreement ID 725291) we aimed to substantially advance our ability to model and understand the behaviour of molecules in complex environments. As a result, we successfully developed a set of machine learning and physics-based methods for covalent and non-covalent interactions that now allow an accurate and efficient modelling of molecules of increasing size (from 10 to 1000 atoms). These methods now enable routine calculations of quantum-mechanical properties of molecules throughout chemical compound space, provided that enough reference data is produced as a starting point for training. Within DISCOVERER, we aim to promote a paradigm shift in chemical discovery by inverting the selection pyramid by starting with pre-defined parameters from which new chemical entities are designed through machine learning and AI-enabled algorithms. We can do so by integrating these modules into a commercial platform: “Chemical Space Machine”. DISCOVERER’s main goal is to finalize the development of a commercial alpha version of “Chemical Space Machine” and setting up its commercialisation strategy.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

ERC-POC - Proof of Concept Grant

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) ERC-2020-PoC

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Host institution

UNIVERSITE DU LUXEMBOURG
Net EU contribution
€ 150 000,00
Address
2 PLACE DE L'UNIVERSITE
4365 ESCH-SUR-ALZETTE
Luxembourg
Region
Luxembourg Luxembourg Luxembourg
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost
No data

Beneficiaries (1)