{"id":13908,"date":"2025-03-12T08:54:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T12:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=13908"},"modified":"2025-03-12T08:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T12:54:08","slug":"software-startup-molecular-intelligence-improves-structuring-molecules-from-cryo-em-image-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/Q1\/software-startup-molecular-intelligence-improves-structuring-molecules-from-cryo-em-image-data","title":{"rendered":"Software startup Molecular Intelligence improves structuring molecules from cryo-EM image data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 Purdue University experts in the College of Science<\/a> and Rosen Center for Advanced Computing<\/a> have launched Molecular Intelligence, a software company whose solutions help researchers determine the 3D structures of biomolecules imaged with cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisuke Kihara<\/a>, professor of biological sciences<\/a> and computer science<\/a>, leads the company. He also is on the faculty of the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research<\/a> and Purdue Institute for Drug Discovery<\/a>. Charles Christoffer, senior computational scientist in the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing, and Genki Terashi, assistant research scientist in the Department of Biological Sciences, are the other founders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molecular Intelligence\u2019s end users are research scientists in bioengineering, medical science and pharmaceutical companies who use cryo-EM to determine 3D structures of proteins, nucleic acids and other biomolecules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese biomolecular structures provide critical information for understanding how proteins function and for developing drugs, which are designed to interact with proteins and alter their activity,\u201d Kihara said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molecular Intelligence was formed in summer 2024. The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a> issued the company an exclusive license to sell the software in January 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customers can purchase the software or use the company\u2019s modeling services. For more information, email dkihara@purdue.edu<\/a> or molintelligence@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emergence and drawbacks of cryo-EM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kihara said many academic institutions and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide are investing in cryo-EM equipment. More than 1,100 sites have purchased cryo-EMs, and most protein structures are determined by the technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, Kihara said, cryo-EM\u2019s low-resolution image data means building structure models of proteins, nucleic acids and drug molecules is not trivial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCurrent data processing, including structure model building, can take many days, often extending over a couple of weeks, incurring significant costs,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen a chosen method does not support structure modeling, researchers manually build models using interactive software, which can be time-consuming and error-prone. If a drug target such as a protein is modeled incorrectly, downstream tasks, including drug design, will be significantly hindered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Molecular Intelligence solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kihara, Christoffer and Terashi\u2019s software suite leverages deep learning to analyze cryo-EM data, which consists of 3D image data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeep learning enables the identification of atom positions in low-resolution cryo-EM maps,\u201d Kihara said. \u201cOur software then uses these identified atom positions to construct the 3D structures of proteins and DNA\/RNA. No special training is required to use the software; it is automated and runs on a regular workstation with a moderate GPU. We also offer modeling services for users who prefer assistance on our end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research behind Molecular Intelligence\u2019s software has been published in the August 11, 2022<\/a>; October 2, 2023<\/a>; and December 8, 2023<\/a>, issues of Nature Methods and the January 2023<\/a> issue of Structural Biology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Institutes of Health provided funding to develop Kihara, Christoffer and Terashi\u2019s computational methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their research and the launch of Molecular Intelligence supports Purdue\u2019s One Health mission, which drives innovation at the intersection of human, animal and plant health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university\u2019s academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2024, the office reported 145 deals finalized with 224 technologies signed, 466 invention disclosures received, and 290 U.S. and international patents received. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Purdue University<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 107,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 58,000 at our main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue\u2019s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap \u2014 including its comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative \u2014 at https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/president\/strategic-initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Media contact:<\/strong> Steve Martin, sgmartin@prf.org<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 Purdue University experts in the College of Science and Rosen Center for Advanced Computing have launched Molecular Intelligence, a software company whose solutions help researchers determine the 3D structures of biomolecules imaged with cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":13867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[],"department":[],"source":[35],"purdue_today_topic":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-13908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prf","source-purdue-research-foundation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13909,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions\/13909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}