A Reliable Molecular Structure Predictor in the Cloud
Since August Kekulé’s proposal for the tetrahedral configuration of carbon or his more famous realization that benzene was a cyclic molecule, a snake biting its tale, molecular structure has been the leading consideration for the design of new molecules as drugs or performance materials. For the former, it is said that 70% of drug design is based on molecular shape with the remainder attributed to electrostatic or non-bonded interactions.
Structural chemistry began around the 1860 with these dual assignments by Kekulé but it wasn’t until one hundred years later with Allinger’s initial force field approaches that the first classical molecular mechanics (MM) models became available to make computer-assisted prediction of molecular structure. These models themselves are based on principles derived by Robert Hooke, a contemporary of Isaac Newton, in the mid 17th century with additional layers from van der Waals (19th century) etc.
Topics: AI & Digital