用智能体规划工具链,分步优化药物分子结构。
Molecular Lead Optimization via Agentic Tool Planning

- 将分子优化建模为多步决策,动态选择工具
- 在保持结合力的前提下,显著提升ADMET性质
- 适合需要长期设计策略的药物研发团队
药物发现是一个漫长且资源密集的过程,其中先导化合物优化阶段至关重要,需通过细微结构调整改善ADMET相关性质,同时保留与靶点结合的关键结构。现有AI方法多采用单步优化,忽略连续决策的长期影响。为此,我们提出TRACE——一种基于大语言模型推理的轨迹感知智能体,将工具选择建模为动作轨迹上的序列决策问题。给定先导分子和优化目标,该智能体可做出前瞻性的结构优化决策。在多个ADMET优化任务中,相比基线模型,其优化成功率更高、性质提升更大、分子有效性更强,同时保持更高的结构相似性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Drug discovery is a lengthy and resource-intensive process composed of multiple stages. Among these stages, lead optimization plays a critical role in transforming early hit compounds into viable drug candidates. This stage requires improving ADMET-related properties through subtle structural refinement while preserving key molecular substructures responsible for binding affinity to disease targets. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have shown promise in accelerating various aspects of drug discovery; however, most existing approaches to lead optimization rely on one-step molecular optimization, which fail to account for the long-term consequences of sequential design decisions. To address this limitation, we propose TRACE, a trajectory-aware, LLM-reasoning agent for molecular lead optimization that formulates tool selection as a sequential decision-making problem over action trajectories. Given a lead molecule and an optimization objective, TRACE makes trajectory-aware decisions over molecular optimization tools, enabling forward-looking refinement under structural constraints. Experiments on multiple ADMET optimization tasks show that our agent achieves higher optimization success, larger property improvements, and higher validity, while preserving molecular similarity compared to baseline models.
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