DARPA’s AMD to accelerate creation of novel, high-performance molecules for Military Applications

The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of autonomous molecular design to accelerate the discovery, validation and optimization of new, high-performance molecules for Department of Defense (DoD) needs. DARPA Accelerated Molecular Discovery (AMD) program,  aims to develop new, AI-based systematic approaches that increase the pace of discovery and optimization of high-performance molecules. A Proposers Day webinar describing the goals of the program is scheduled for Oct.18, 2018

The efficient discovery and production of new molecules is essential for a range of military capabilities—from developing safe chemical warfare agent simulants and medicines to counter emerging threats, to coatings, dyes, and specialty fuels for advanced performance. Another example is Energetics, meaning energy-dense molecules used for applications such as explosives and propellants. Current approaches to develop molecules for specific applications, however, are intuition-driven, mired in slow iterative design and test cycles, and ultimately limited by the specific molecular expertise of the chemist who has to test each candidate molecule by hand.

DARPA seeks to develop new, systematic approaches that increase the pace of discovery and optimization of high-performance molecules through development of AI-based, closed-loop systems that that automatically extract existing chemistry data from databases and text, perform autonomous experimental measurement and optimization, and use computational approaches to develop physics-based representations and predictive tools.

Such methods will ultimately enable AI-based design and discovery of completely new molecules that are optimized across multiple molecular properties for specific DoD applications. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, and systems related to small organic molecules.

AMD performers will develop tools, models, and experimental capabilities to rapidly design, validate, and optimize molecules. Government partners will evaluate performer developments and test their ability to identify new molecules with specific combinations of functional properties that may be relevant to specific DoD application requirements.

“The ultimate goal of AMD is to speed the time to design, validate, and optimize new molecules with defined properties from several years to a few months, or even several weeks,” said Anne Fischer, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “We aim to develop the AI tools, models and experimental systems to enable autonomous design of molecules to quickly meet DoD needs.”