Design A Molecule Competition

The competition ended April 30th, 2012 and is now closed to new entries We will be running another one soon so why not sign up for our newsletter to get a head start?

Details for the Last Competition

Cresset is running our fourth competition to find the world’s most creative chemists. The challenge is simple – find the best bioisosteric molecule to a reference compound that we provide. To help you on your way we will provide a free demo license for FieldAlign and FieldView that is valid for the duration of the competition, a reference molecule and a set of fragments to grow and/or adapt into a drug like, novel bioisostere of our starting ligand.

The catch – we want you to design structurally diverse molecules that are still reasonably chemically tractable and drug-like.

We’re continuing to work on anti-malarials, this time with a target relevant to antibacterials and anti-fungals. We believe that this competition is not only a great way to hone your molecule design skills, but to generate potential leads in the fight against malaria, which is why we will donate any IP generated from the competition to a not-for profit working on this very worthy cause. More details are available on the blog. To help you, we will give you access to FieldAlign together with all the files that you need and we’ve produced an introductory video and a detailed explanation of the steps that you need to take.

How it works:

1. Register and we will send you a link to download the software and project files that you need (registration currently closed)
2. Design your molecules and then export your best
3. Check out our blog for hints and tips
4. Submit your aligned molecules as an sdf file

*The Small Print: We will use the Field alignment score for your molecule to the reference molecule as the primary judgement in designing the winner. However, molecules with high 2D similarity or high calculated logP with receive a penalty and are unlikely to win. Also entries with reasonable chemistry and good synthetic feasibility will be favoured. Feedback showing the score for your molecule and describing which properties of the molecule are being penalised will be provided on request. The winner will be the molecule that, in the opinion of the judges, represents the best design chosen from the top scoring results.