The Open Source Malaria (OSM) consortium is developing compounds that kill the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, by targeting PfATP4, an essential ion pump on the parasite surface. The structure of PfATP4 has not been determined. Here, we describe a public competition created to develop a predictive model for the identification of PfATP4 inhibitors, thereby reducing project costs associated with the synthesis of inactive compounds. Competition participants could see all entries as they were submitted. In the final round, featuring private sector entrants specializing in machine learning methods, the best-performing models were used to predict novel inhibitors, of which several were synthesized and evaluated against the parasite. Half possessed biological activity, with one featuring a motif that the human chemists familiar with this series would have dismissed as “ill-advised”. Since all data and participant interactions remain in the public domain, this research project “lives” and may be improved by others.

中文翻译：

---

公开药物发现竞赛：一系列新型抗疟药中预测模型的实验验证

开源疟疾 (OSM) 联盟正在开发可杀死人类疟疾寄生虫恶性疟原虫的化合物，其目标是Pf ATP4，这是寄生虫表面的一种重要离子泵。Pf ATP4的结构尚未确定。在这里，我们描述了为开发用于识别Pf的预测模型而创建的公开竞赛ATP4 抑制剂，从而降低与非活性化合物合成相关的项目成本。参赛者可以看到提交的所有参赛作品。在最后一轮中，以专注于机器学习方法的私营部门进入者为特色，性能最佳的模型被用于预测新型抑制剂，其中一些模型被合成并针对寄生虫进行了评估。其中一半具有生物活性，其中一个具有熟悉该系列的人类化学家会认为是“不明智”的主题。由于所有数据和参与者交互都保留在公共领域，因此该研究项目“存在”并且可能会被其他人改进。