Themed collection AI & ML in the Chemical Sciences
Modeling protein–ligand interactions for drug discovery in the era of deep learning
Integrating physics-based and deep learning methods advances protein–ligand modeling, boosting accuracy, scalability, and efficiency. This review surveys progress, integration strategies, challenges, and the outlook for AI-driven drug discovery.
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2025, Advance Article
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5CS00415B
Intelligent understanding of spectra: from structural elucidation to property design
AI-driven methods link spectral fingerprints to structures and properties, providing a foundation for the unified inverse design of functional substances and delivering interpretable insights into universal spectrum–structure–property relationships.
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2025,54, 8243-8286
https://doi.org/10.1039/D4CS01293C
Cross-disciplinary perspectives on the potential for artificial intelligence across chemistry
We offer ten diverse perspectives exploring the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in chemistry, highlighting many of the challenges we face, and offering potential strategies to address them.
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2025,54, 5433-5469
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5CS00146C
The evolution of machine learning potentials for molecules, reactions and materials
This review offers a comprehensive overview of the development of machine learning potentials for molecules, reactions, and materials over the past two decades, evolving from traditional models to the state-of-the-art.
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2025,54, 4790-4821
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5CS00104H
Computational tools for the prediction of site- and regioselectivity of organic reactions
This article reviews computational tools for the prediction of the regio- and site-selectivity of organic reactions. It spans from quantum chemical procedures to deep learning models and showcases the application of the presented tools.
Chem. Sci., 2025,16, 5383-5412
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5SC00541H
Application of neural network potentials to modelling transition states
Enhanced sampling with ANI-2x enables rapid, systematic exploration of complex free energy landscapes to guide transition state refinement.
Chem. Commun., 2025,61, 11810-11813
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5CC02090E
Machine learning workflows beyond linear models in low-data regimes
This work presents automated non-linear workflows for studying problems in low-data regimes alongside traditional linear models.
Chem. Sci., 2025,16, 8555-8560
https://doi.org/10.1039/D5SC00996K
Atom-based machine learning for estimating nucleophilicity and electrophilicity with applications to retrosynthesis and chemical stability
Nucleophilicity and electrophilicity are important properties for evaluating the reactivity and selectivity of chemical reactions.
Chem. Sci., 2025,16, 5676-5687
https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SC07297A
HANNA: hard-constraint neural network for consistent activity coefficient prediction
We introduce HANNA, the first hybrid neural network model that strictly complies with all thermodynamic consistency criteria for predicting activity coefficients and outperforms current benchmark methods in terms of accuracy and applicability.
Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 19777-19786
https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SC05115G
Experimentally-based Fe-catalyzed ethene oligomerization machine learning model provides highly accurate prediction of propagation/termination selectivity
In this work we developed a highly accurate experimentally-based machine learning model with bespoke features that can predict the rate of ethene oligomerization propagation versus termination.
Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 18355-18363
https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SC03433C
Automated electrosynthesis reaction mining with multimodal large language models (MLLMs)
Leveraging multimodal large language models (MLLMs) to process multimodal data inputs and complex inter-modality data dependencies for automated (electro)chemical data mining from scientific literature.
Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 17881-17891
https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SC04630G
About this collection
Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become important components of the computational toolbox that can be used to advance chemical research and discovery. At times, the use of AI/ML has opened up new applications that were previously intractable, while at other times, AI/ML has allowed us to revisit long-standing scientific questions in a new light. Guest Edited by Professors R. B. Sunoj (IIT Bombay, India), Connor Coley (MIT, USA), Kim Jelfs (Imperial College London, UK) and Jun Jiang (University of Science and Technology of China, China), this themed collection aims to bring together invited contributions showcasing the rapid development of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its applications across the chemical sciences, in some of our high impact, general chemistry journals.
This collection will cover a broad range of research problems in the chemical sciences for which AI/ML has been particularly impactful, including AI/ML methods and software for autonomous chemistry/self-driving labs, AI/ML-augmented applications of spectroscopic techniques and data for the design and discovery of functional molecules and materials as well as Inverse design of molecular and material structures to achieve desired functions. We hope you enjoy reading this collection.