AIMS Awards Program

What is the AIMS Awards program?

The AIMS Awards program, started in 2017, is designed to support promising researchers with resources that will help advance their work. AIMS Awards target research focused on finding solutions for complex human and nonhuman health conditions. To date, Atomwise has funded 7 rounds of AIMS Awards, completing over 100 collaborative projects and accepting over 800 projects into the program.

Collaborate with us to find novel active compounds for your protein target of interest! Our AIMS Awards program provides non-profit researchers with virtual screening and compounds for physical testing at no cost.

Atomwise will begin accepting applications for the next round of the AIMS program in Fall 2021. Stay tuned for details on how to apply. Please contact us at academics@atomwise.com regarding questions about the AIMS program.

What do awardees receive?

• Custom small molecule virtual screen of millions of compounds using the AtomNet® platform
• ~72 small molecules predicted to bind to a specific target protein
• Personal support from medicinal chemists and computational biologists
• Additional small molecules and other resources if criteria are met

Atomwise contributes both AI technology and physical molecules to labs across the world while our collaborators contribute their deep biological knowledge and expertise in physically assessing compound activity. Together we accelerate research and establish new drug discovery programs.

Why participate in the AIMS program?

Researchers don’t always have access to the tools needed to translate their discoveries into new medicines, agricultural tools, and molecular probes. The goal of the Artificial Intelligence Molecular Screen (AIMS) program is to broaden the pool of scientists involved in the discovery of small molecules for the treatment and investigation of disease.

To that end, Atomwise seeks proposals from non-profit researchers with protein targets that are implicated in human and non-human diseases. Working together, we can dramatically accelerate the race towards life-changing molecules by screening millions of compounds for activity against any protein target of interest.

What types of projects are considered?

Atomwise will consider any project that could benefit from our expertise and technology. A project’s application may be in any research area, including animal health, biotechnology, human biology, microbiology, plant biology, virology, and medicine. Our AtomNet® platform uses the structure of the specified binding region of a protein target to predict which compounds will be active. Please note that a structure or identified binding site is not required to receive the award. Our scientific team can often aid in the identification of appropriate structural data, homology model templates, and potential binding sites when reviewing an application.

All compound activity predictions must be physically verified by an assay. Projects with the highest probability of discovering novel active compounds will have the following:

1. 1. An established assay that can test at least 72 small molecules for activity at a single concentration
   2. Structural data for the target protein or a homologous protein with sufficient sequence identity in the proposed binding region