Medical university in east China to advance small molecule drug development with quantum computing

HEFEI, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- A medical university will use quantum computing technology to accelerate the development of small molecule drugs and improve the drug design efficiency, bringing in new ideas for the pharmaceutical research and development models.

Bengbu Medical University (BMU) in east China's Anhui Province made an agreement with the Origin Quantum Computing Technology Co., Ltd., a quantum computing company based in Hefei, capital city of Anhui, to develop the quantum-computing-powered application for molecular docking, the Science and Technology Daily reported Friday.

According to Zhang Yixuan, a researcher in BMU School of Pharmacy, small molecule drugs can easily penetrate the cell membrane to reach any location and interact with target proteins to exert the corresponding therapeutic effects. Designers of small molecule drugs need to use molecular docking to find the matching pairs of small molecules and target proteins.

Traditional molecular docking practices rely on high-performance computer clusters for extensive calculations, which are often slow and lack precision.

Quantum computing technology can break through the computational bottlenecks in traditional small molecule drug design. Moreover, the technology can significantly improve its speed and accuracy, opening up a path for more efficient and precise drug screening.

According to the Origin Quantum, its team has developed a series of applications for drug design based on the Origin Wukong, the third-generation superconducting quantum computer, which can effectively predict the properties of drug molecules and their interactions with each other.

"This will lay a solid foundation for the design of small molecule drugs, accelerate the development of innovative drugs, and promote progress in the life sciences sector," said Dou Menghan, vice director of the Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center of Anhui Province.