Here we introduce a framework for molecular structure optimization using a denoising model on a physics-informed Riemannian manifold (R-DM). Unlike conventional approaches operating in Euclidean space, our method leverages a Riemannian metric that better aligns with molecular energy change, enabling more robust modeling of potential energy surfaces. By incorporating internal coordinates reflective of energetic properties, R-DM achieves chemical accuracy with an energy error below 1 kcal mol-1. Comparative evaluations on QM9, QM7-X and GEOM datasets demonstrate improvements in both structural and energetic accuracy, surpassing conventional Euclidean-based denoising models. This approach highlights the potential of physics-informed coordinates for tackling complex molecular optimization problems, with implications for tasks in computational chemistry and materials science.

Accelerated materials discovery is critical for addressing global challenges. However, developing new laboratory workflows relies heavily on real-world experimental trials, and this can hinder scalability because of the need for numerous physical make-and-test iterations. Here we present MATTERIX, a multiscale, graphics processing unit-accelerated robotic simulation framework designed to create high-fidelity digital twins of chemistry laboratories, thus accelerating workflow development. This multiscale digital twin simulates robotic physical manipulation, powder and liquid dynamics, device functionalities, heat transfer and basic chemical reaction kinetics. This is enabled by integrating realistic physics simulation and photorealistic rendering with a modular graphics processing unit-accelerated semantics engine, which models logical states and continuous behaviors to simulate chemistry workflows across different levels of abstraction. MATTERIX streamlines the creation of digital twin environments through open-source asset libraries and interfaces, while enabling flexible workflow design via hierarchical plan definition and a modular skill library that incorporates learning-based methods. Our approach demonstrates sim-to-real transfer in robotic chemistry setups, reducing reliance on costly real-world experiments and enabling the testing of hypothetical automated workflows in silico.

Applications of deep learning (DL) to design nanomaterials are hampered by a lack of suitable data representations and training data. Here we report efforts to overcome these limitations and leverage DL to optimize the nonlinear optical properties of core-shell upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs). UCNPs, which have applications in fields such as biosensing, super-resolution microscopy and three-dimensional printing, can emit visible and ultraviolet light from near-infrared excitations. We report a large-scale dataset of UCNP emission spectra based on accurate but expensive kinetic Monte Carlo simulations (N > 6,000) and use these data to train a heterogeneous graph neural network using a physically motivated representation of UCNP nanostructure. Applying gradient-based optimization on the trained graph neural network, we identify structures with 6.5× higher predicted emission under 800-nm illumination than any UCNP in our training set. Our work reveals design principles for UCNP heterostructures and presents a roadmap for DL-based inverse design of nanomaterials.

Mass spectrometry is a widely used method for the identification of molecules in complex samples. Current tools for database search of experimental spectra against libraries of molecules are not scalable. Moreover, these tools are often limited to known molecules and only perform an exact search. Here, to address this, we introduce Variable Interpretation of Spectrum-Molecule Couples, or VInSMoC, a mass spectral database search algorithm for the identification of variants of molecules. VInSMoC removes some false identifications by estimating the statistical significance of matches between spectra and molecular structures. Benchmarking VInSMoC in a search of 483 million spectra from GNPS against 87 million molecules from PubChem and COCONUT revealed 43,000 known molecules and 85,000 variants that were previously unreported. VInSMoC further facilitates identifying putative microbial biosynthesis pathways of promothiocin B and depsidomycin in Streptomyces bellus and Streptomyces sp. F-2747, respectively.

Mental health disorders create profound personal and societal burdens, yet conventional diagnostics are resource-intensive and limit accessibility. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, particularly natural language processing and multimodal methods, offer promise for detecting and addressing mental disorders. However, these innovations also introduce privacy concerns. Here we examine these challenges and propose solutions, including anonymization, synthetic data and privacy-preserving training, while outlining frameworks for privacy-utility trade-offs, aiming to advance reliable, privacy-aware artificial-intelligence tools that support clinical decision-making and improve mental health outcomes.

Multi-fidelity Bayesian optimization (MFBO) is a promising framework to speed up materials and molecular discovery as sources of information of different accuracies are at hand at increasing cost. Despite its potential use in chemical tasks, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of the many parameters playing a role in MFBO. Here we provide guidelines and recommendations to decide when to use MFBO in experimental settings. We investigate MFBO methods applied to molecules and materials problems. First, we test two different families of acquisition functions in two synthetic problems and study the effect of the informativeness and cost of the approximate function. We use our implementation and guidelines to benchmark three real discovery problems and compare them against their single-fidelity counterparts. Our results may help guide future efforts to implement MFBO as a routine tool in the chemical sciences.