Phil Bates

Mohamed Dhouioui, Jonathan Barnoud, Rhoslyn Roebuck Williams et al.

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are a crucial computational tool for researchers to understand and engineer molecular structure and function in areas such as drug discovery, protein engineering, and material design. Despite their utility, MD simulations are expensive, owing to the high dimensionality of molecular systems. Interactive molecular dynamics in virtual reality (iMD-VR) has recently emerged as a "human-in-the-loop" strategy for efficiently navigating hyper-dimensional molecular systems. By providing an immersive 3D environment that enables visualization and manipulation of real-time molecular simulations running on high-performance computing architectures, iMD-VR enables researchers to reach out and guide molecular conformational dynamics, in order to efficiently explore complex, high-dimensional molecular systems. Moreover, iMD-VR simulations generate rich datasets that capture human experts' spatial insight regarding molecular structure and function. This paper explores the use of researcher-generated iMD-VR datasets to train AI agents via imitation learning (IL). IL enables agents to mimic complex behaviours from expert demonstrations, circumventing the need for explicit programming or intricate reward design. In this article, we review IL across robotics and Multi-agents systems domains which are comparable to iMD-VR, and discuss how iMD-VR recordings could be used to train IL models to interact with MD simulations. We then illustrate the applications of these ideas through a proof-of-principle study where iMD-VR data was used to train a CNN network on a simple molecular manipulation task; namely, threading a small molecule through a nanotube pore. Finally, we outline future research directions and potential challenges of using AI agents to augment human expertise in navigating vast molecular conformational spaces.

Michael O Connor, Helen M. Deeks, Edward Dawn et al.

We describe a framework for interactive molecular dynamics in a multiuser virtual reality environment, combining rigorous cloud-mounted physical atomistic simulation with commodity virtual reality hardware, which we have made accessible to readers (see isci.itch.io/nsb-imd). It allows users to visualize and sample, with atomic-level precision, the structures and dynamics of complex molecular structures 'on the fly', and to interact with other users in the same virtual environment. A series of controlled studies, wherein participants were tasked with a range of molecular manipulation goals (threading methane through a nanotube, changing helical screw-sense, and tying a protein knot), quantitatively demonstrate that users within the interactive VR environment can complete sophisticated molecular modelling tasks more quickly than they can using conventional interfaces, especially for molecular pathways and structural transitions whose conformational choreographies are intrinsically 3d. This framework should accelerate progress in nanoscale molecular engineering areas such as drug development, synthetic biology, and catalyst design. More broadly, our findings highlight VR's potential in scientific domains where 3d dynamics matter, spanning research and education.