{"id":15288,"date":"2026-10-07T13:44:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T12:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/?p=15288"},"modified":"2026-10-07T13:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T12:44:23","slug":"the-first-openbind-blind-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/the-first-openbind-blind-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"The First OpenBind Blind Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At OpenBind<\/a>, we\u2019re working to generate large-scale, open experimental datasets of protein-ligand structures and binding measurements to support the development and evaluation of computational methods for drug discovery. One thing I\u2019m particularly excited about is using these data not just for retrospective benchmarking, but for prospective, blind evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I\u2019m very pleased that we\u2019re launching the first OpenBind blind challenge<\/a><\/strong> on 14 October 2026<\/strong>, in partnership with OpenADMET<\/a> and the ASAP Discovery Consortium<\/a>. The interim submission deadline is 11 November, with final submissions due by 16 December 2026 at 23:59 UTC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge asks participants to predict protein-ligand complexes of 400 compounds<\/strong> bound to Zika virus NS2B-NS3 protease, ranging from small fragments to larger, lead-like molecules. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key challenge will be using the structural information that already exists to accurately predict the binding modes of new, unseen ligands. There are already a number of publicly available structures of Zika NS2B-NS3 protease in the PDB<\/a> that participants can use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re also setting a high bar for success. While many protein-ligand benchmarks use an RMSD threshold of 2 \u00c5, we\u2019re tightening this to 1.5 \u00c5, along with additional checks on interaction accuracy (lDDT-PLI > 0.8) and physical validity (PoseBusters<\/a> validity checks). I\u2019m particularly excited to see how docking, cofolding, and other approaches compare!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you work on protein-ligand structure prediction, I\u2019d strongly encourage you to join the challenge. You can find all the details, including how to register and join the challenge Discord, in the OpenBind announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At OpenBind, we\u2019re working to generate large-scale, open experimental datasets of protein-ligand structures and binding measurements to support the development and evaluation of computational methods for drug discovery. One thing I\u2019m particularly excited about is using these data not just for retrospective benchmarking, but for prospective, blind evaluation. So, I\u2019m very pleased that we\u2019re launching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[633,910,849,189,274,228,291,201],"tags":[969,968,172,970,58,134],"ppma_author":[535],"class_list":["post-15288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-co-folding","category-drug-discovery","category-machine-learning","category-molecular-recognition","category-protein-structure","category-protein-ligand-docking","category-small-molecules","tag-blind-challenge","tag-cofolding","tag-machine-learning","tag-openbind","tag-protein-structure-prediction","tag-small-molecules"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":535,"user_id":50,"is_guest":0,"slug":"fergus2","display_name":"Fergus Imrie","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/807163cf27d9557d33bde2879d0be7dd59ec0ff44f39b4c73351538a3b6adf70?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Imrie","first_name":"Fergus","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15340,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15288\/revisions\/15340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15288"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blopig.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=15288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}