aiqbench analysis
This study evaluates the capability of general-purpose Large Language Models to handle complex 3D spatial constraints in structure-based drug design, introducing a new benchmark called 3D-Fit. While current LLMs still lag behind specialized diffusion models for high-quality molecule generation, they demonstrate promising potential for managing multiple simultaneous spatial conditions like anchor fragments and pharmacophore points. The findings suggest that scaling these heterogeneous setups could eventually bridge the gap between linguistic reasoning and physical simulation in molecular design.
Do Language Models Dream of Binding Molecules? Benchmarking LLMs under Spatial Constraints
arXiv:2607.18144v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Structure-based drug design (SBDD) leverages the 3D structure of protein targets, often complemented by other spatial constraints, to generate candidate binding molecules. While diffusion models have dominated as a leading paradigm for high-quality 3D molecule generation, LLM-based methods are rapidly emerging in molecular design and have shown competitive performance in pocket-conditioned molecular generation. However, their ability to reason about physics and 3D spatial environments is largely underexplored. In this work, we systematically analyze whether current general-purpose LLMs are capable of navigating complex 3D constraints compared to established baselines such as specialized diffusion models. We consider 3D ligand generation conditioned on protein pockets together with ligand- and interaction-derived spatial constraints, including anchor fragments, pharmacophore points, and mandatory pocket-ligand interactions. To enable this evaluation, we introduce 3D-Fit - a token-efficient benchmarking strategy for assessing LLM performance on multi-conditioned spatial molecule generation. Our findings reveal a clear pattern in LLM spatial capabilities: while they still lag behind state-of-the-art approaches, they are promising and can handle multiple spatial constraints simultaneously, enabling scaling to heterogeneous setups.
Title:Do Language Models Dream of Binding Molecules? Benchmarking LLMs under Spatial Constraints
Abstract:Structure-based drug design (SBDD) leverages the 3D structure of protein targets, often complemented by other spatial constraints, to generate candidate binding molecules. While diffusion models have dominated as a leading paradigm for high-quality 3D molecule generation, LLM-based methods are rapidly emerging in molecular design and have shown competitive performance in pocket-conditioned molecular generation. However, their ability to reason about physics and 3D spatial environments is largely underexplored. In this work, we systematically analyze whether current general-purpose LLMs are capable of navigating complex 3D constraints compared to established baselines such as specialized diffusion models. We consider 3D ligand generation conditioned on protein pockets together with ligand- and interaction-derived spatial constraints, including anchor fragments, pharmacophore points, and mandatory pocket-ligand interactions. To enable this evaluation, we introduce 3D-Fit - a token-efficient benchmarking strategy for assessing LLM performance on multi-conditioned spatial molecule generation. Our findings reveal a clear pattern in LLM spatial capabilities: while they still lag behind state-of-the-art approaches, they are promising and can handle multiple spatial constraints simultaneously, enabling scaling to heterogeneous setups.
Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computation and Language (cs.CL)
arXiv:2607.18144 [cs.LG]
(or arXiv:2607.18144v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.18144 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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