Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 18, 2025

Curation of Computational Chemical Libraries Demonstrated with Alpha-Amino Acids
Published on: April 13, 2022
ACEGEN: Reinforcement Learning of Generative Chemical Agents for Drug Discovery
Albert Bou1,2, Morgan Thomas1, Sebastian Dittert1
1Computational Science Laboratory, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), C Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
Abstract:
In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) has emerged as a valuable tool in drug design, offering the potential to propose and optimize molecules with desired properties. However, striking a balance between capabilities, flexibility, reliability, and efficiency remains challenging due to the complexity of advanced RL algorithms and the significant reliance on specialized code. In this work, we introduce ACEGEN, a comprehensive and streamlined toolkit tailored for generative drug design, built using TorchRL, a modern RL library that offers thoroughly tested reusable components. We validate ACEGEN by benchmarking against other published generative modeling algorithms and show comparable or improved performance. We also show examples of ACEGEN applied in multiple drug discovery case studies. ACEGEN is accessible at https://github.com/acellera/acegen-open and available for use under the MIT license.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Discovery: Overview
Structure-Activity Relationships and Drug Design
SAR studies the intricate relationship between a drug's chemical structure and biological activity. It focuses on understanding how modifications to a drug's structure can influence...
Principles of Drug Action
Drugs can be agonists or antagonists. Like the endogenous ligands, agonists always bind and activate the target to produce a cellular response. Agonist binding induces a conformational change which in turn...
Effects of Chemicals: Overview
Preparation of 1° Amines: Gabriel Synthesis
Strong bases like NaOH or KOH deprotonate the phthalimide to form the corresponding anion, which acts as a nucleophile. Further, the anion attacks an...
The Two-State Receptor Model
The binding affinity of a drug determines its interaction with...

