Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41052340›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025

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

Shengchao Liu, Liang Yan, Weitao Du, Weiyang Liu, Zhuoxinran Li, Hongyu Guo, Christian Borgs, Jennifer Chayes, Anima Anandkumar

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Machine learning in chemistry.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  6. Manifold-constrained nucleus-level denoising diffusion model for structure-based drug design.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Shengchao Liu *Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.ORCID 0000-0003-2030-2367
Liang Yan *Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS), California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125.ORCID 0009-0009-2880-3124
Weitao DuAlibaba DAMO Academy, Bellevue, WA 98004.ORCID 0000-0001-7643-4671
Weiyang LiuMax Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen 72076, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-8234-3263
Zhuoxinran LiDepartment of Human Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A1, Canada.
Hongyu GuoNational Research Council Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-7663-2421
Christian BorgsDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.ORCID 0000-0001-5653-0498
Jennifer ChayesDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.ORCID 0000-0003-4020-8618
Anima AnandkumarDepartment of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS), California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125.ORCID 0000-0002-6974-6797

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

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.

Indexed as

Antiviral AgentsDrug DesignCOVID-19COVID-19 Drug TreatmentHumansLigandsSARS-CoV-2Antiviral AgentsLigandsgenerative AImanifold learningstatistical machine learningstructure-based drug design

Identifiers

PMID41052340
PMCPMC12541315

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.