Peer-Reviewed Publication
Nat Biotechnol2026August 19, 2026Journal Article
A blinded, prospective benchmark of in silico antibody discovery anchored to experimental affinity and developability.
M Frank Erasmus1, Daniel Bedinger2, Elizabeth Hopkins3, Ginger Ferguson3, Justine Strickler3, Christilyn P Graff4, Samantha R Summers4, Stacy L Capehart4, Joshua D Slocum4, Crystal Richardson5, Sumit Kumar5, Zhifei Sun5, Yujie Shang5, Jixian Zhang6, Ming Gu6, Lixia Yi6, Alon Wellner6, Shuangjia Zheng6, Wei Lu6, Pietro Sormanni7, Matthew Greenig7, Haiping Zhang8, Brendan T Mann9, Mahdi Baghbanzadeh9, Ali Rahnavard9, Gregory L Moore10, Huaiyu Sun10, Ying Ding10, Alex Nisthal10, Jitendra Kanodia10, Matthew J Bernett10, Aurélien Pélissier11,12, Yanjun Shao11, Maria Rodriguez Martinez11, Karthik Ramesh13, Horacio Nastri13, Andreas Evers14, Anhar Abdelatif15, Andrew J Bordner15, Mykola Bordyuh15, Lim Heo15, Brian A Kidd15, H Serhat Tetikol15, Shuai Wei15, Jung-Eun Shin16, Ryan Peckner16, Leigh Manley16, Ajitesh Lunge17, Yashas Devasurmutt17, Bora Guloglu18, Liviu Copoiu18, Miles McGibbon18, Monica L Fernandez-Quintero19, Nitesh Mishra19, Sean M Callaghan19, Olivia M Swanson19, Daniel L V Bader19, James A Ferguson19, Sai S R Raghavan19, Benjamin Nemoz19, Colleen A Maillie19, Charles Bowman19, Bryan Briney19, Andrew B Ward19, Paolo Marcatili20, Rahmad Akbar20, Bing He21, Fandi Wu21, Jianhua Yao21, Bin Hu22, Michal Kucer22, Kaetlyn Rose Gibson22, Rahul Somasundaram22, Li-Wei Hung22, Tomasz Kaszuba23,24,25, Daved H Fremont23,24,25,26,27, Hyeongsun Jeong28, Vinodh Babu Kurella29, Shipra Malhotra29, Satyendra Kumar29, Yanyun Liu30, Lingling Xu30, Joshua Misa30, Alexander Nicholas St John31, Jeff Vogt32, Fátima A Dávila-Hernández32, Da Xu32, Michael Chungyoun32, Zyaja D Huggan32, Jeffrey J Gray32, Jonathan Parkinson33, Young Su Ko33, Wei Wang33, Franziska Geiger34, Jonathon D Ziegler34, Nikhil Haas35, Chance Challacombe35, Ahmad Qamar35, Akshita Singh36, Yi-Ching Tang36, Zhiqiang An36, Xiaoqian Jiang36, Yejin Kim36, Xinyan Zhao36, Erik Swanson37, Jürgen Klattig38, Karsten Winkler38, Tschimegma Bataa38, Volker Sandig38, Lilian Denzler12,39, Chunan Liu39, Randall J Brezski40, Laura Spector41, Katheryn Perea-Schmittle41, Sara D'Angelo41, Fortunato Ferrara41, Andrew R M Bradbury42
1Specifica, an IQVIA Business, Santa Fe, NM, USA. mfrank.erasmus@iqvia.com.
2Carterra, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
3Sapidyne Instruments, Inc. GmbH, Boise, ID, USA.
4Mosaic Biosciences, Boulder, CO, USA.
5GENEWIZ, Azenta Life Sciences, South Plainfield, NJ, USA.
6Aureka Biotechnologies, Laguna Hills, CA, USA.
7University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
8Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology (SUAT), Shenzhen, China.
9The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA.
10Xencor, Inc., Pasadena, CA, USA.
11Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
12Institute of Computational Life Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Zurich, Switzerland.
13Incyte, Inc., Wilmington, DE, USA.
14Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
15Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ, USA.
16Seismic Therapeutic, Watertown, MA, USA.
17Locksmith Bio, Dover, DE, USA.
18InstaDeep, London, UK.
19Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, CA, USA.
20Novo Nordisk A/S, Bagsværd, Denmark.
21Tencent AI for Life Sciences Lab, Shenzhen, China.
22Los Alamos National Laboratories, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
23Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
24Department of Pathology & Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
25Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University McKelvey School of Engineering, St. Louis, MO, USA.
26Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
27Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
28BioNote, Hwaseong-si, South Korea.
29Takeda, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA.
30Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA.
31Apoha, London, UK.
32Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
33University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
34Cradle, Zürich, Switzerland.
35BioLM, Oakland, CA, USA.
36UTHealth, Houston, TX, USA.
37Manifold Bio, Boston, MA, USA.
38ProBioGen, Berlin, Germany.
39Structural and Molecular Biology, Division of Biosciences, University College, London, UK.
40The Antibody Society, Framingham, MA, USA.
41Specifica, an IQVIA Business, Santa Fe, NM, USA.
42Specifica, an IQVIA Business, Santa Fe, NM, USA. andrew.bradbury@iqvia.com.
Abstract
Experimentally validated prospective, blinded benchmarks are needed to separate durable advances from hype in computational antibody design. Here AIntibody, a challenge inspired by the Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction, tests 511 artificial intelligence (AI)-designed or predicted antibodies from 29 organizations on three tasks: in silico affinity maturation from phase 1 sequencing output…
Create a free account to keep reading
Free members get 10 full research views every month across publications, clinical trials, FDA clearances, adverse events, and NIH grants. No credit card required.
Want unlimited research access? See Pro plans