Open science competitions, such as Conscience’s CACHE Challenges, provide multiple benefits for early-stage drug discovery and the companies and researchers that participate in them. While hit-finding is the ultimate goal, the impact of participating in a challenge goes far beyond the competition itself. The challenges offer an opportunity to share data across organizations, accelerate discovery, expand pools of insight, and allow the scientific community to learn collectively from both successes and failures. They can also be used as an important benchmarking tool in the field.
Through complex scientific challenges, companies and researchers can refine their technology and methodologies, improve operational workflows, and give team members hands-on experience. All of which are benefits that are easier to realize in lower-pressure environments because the work isn’t tied to a client project. In this way, these challenges become a platform for both innovation and organizational growth, helping companies develop stronger capabilities. At the same time, sharing data provides a collaborative learning opportunity that advances drug discovery for the broader community.
Molecular Forecaster is a computational chemistry company that helps companies make smarter drug design decisions. Their highly collaborative Research-as-a-Service model democratizes computer-aided drug design, with the goal of becoming the go-to partner for small molecule drug design. Molecular Forecaster has participated in all six CACHE Challenges so far, demonstrating the value and experience gained by entering multiple challenges.
“…the challenges are an excellent opportunity for our junior scientists to get valuable hands-on experience working with complex, real-world scientific problems”
“We were drawn to participate in the first CACHE Challenge for several reasons, including the fact that this is a Canadian initiative,” said Josh Pottel, Ph.D., CEO of Molecular Forecaster. “We continue to participate because the challenges are an excellent opportunity for our junior scientists to get valuable hands-on experience working with complex, real-world scientific problems. We also benefit from being able to share our data and access the data generated by others. For us, the lessons of CACHE go far beyond winning or losing; they are opportunities to learn and collaborate.”
Dr. Artem Cherkasov is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design, a professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and a senior scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. He also placed first in CACHE Challenge #1 and CACHE Challenge #3, using advanced computational methods and AI to identify potential new treatments for Parkinson’s disease and COVID-19, respectively.
“…now is the right time and the right place for CACHE as open science competitions like this can lead to greater opportunity for economic balance”
“We are experiencing a digital revolution in drug discovery with the help of AI,” said Dr. Cherkasov. “As a proponent of the democratization of drug discovery, now is the right time and the right place for CACHE as open science competitions like this can lead to greater opportunity for economic balance. The CACHE Challenges also allow for benchmarking in the field, which then leads to sharing and greater adoption of best practices. Plus, the competitive edge of the competitions can be beneficial and I’ve found that it encourages participation.”
Keunwan Park, Principal Researcher with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), has also participated in four CACHE Challenges. In CACHE Challenge #4, Keunwan Park was the only participant to identify a molecule that was both bioactive and chemically novel.
“CACHE provides essential datasets and a standardized platform to evaluate performance, enabling the development of such methods”
“I believe the greatest value of CACHE lies in its community-driven approach, similar to CASP, where teams share diverse strategies to tackle the challenge of hit-finding,” said Park. “CACHE provides essential datasets and a standardized platform to evaluate performance, enabling the development of such methods. By continuously participating in challenges, we have been able to explore and refine our own workflows while learning from the varied methodologies of other teams. We expect that the valuable targets and resulting datasets provided by CACHE will play a key role in advancing more effective virtual screening and drug discovery strategies.”
Regardless of whether someone participates in one or more challenges, the benefits are invaluable. Each represents a new opportunity to learn and evaluate new methods, gain hands-on experience, and foster collaboration through data-sharing.
Through open science initiatives like the CACHE Challenges, the scientific community can drive innovation in early-stage drug discovery forward. By participating, researchers and companies collectively advance the field, refine methodologies, and generate shared knowledge that strengthens the broader drug discovery ecosystem. In this way, CACHE and similar competitions do more than accelerate individual projects, they contribute to a more collaborative, efficient, and impactful scientific community.
