BoltzMol-1 finds WRN inhibitor hits for ~$10K in 10 days; best IC50 8.4 µM
GabriCorso · x · 2026-09-16
The Boltz team shared a case study of BoltzMol-1 on WRN (Werner helicase), a highly dynamic cancer target whose inhibitor-bound conformation wasn't publicly captured until 2024, after Boltz's training cutoff. Running BoltzMol-1 against that conformation, they selected 27 compounds for experimental testing: 3 showed functional inhibition of WRN, the strongest reaching IC50 of 8.4 µM, and two were confirmed by direct SPR binding. The work was done by a single chemist with 2 days of computation and 1 week of CRO testing, costing roughly $10,000 total including compute, compounds, and assays. For comparison, Novartis screened nearly 350,000 compounds across three campaigns for its initial WRN hit — months of work at an estimated order of magnitude higher cost.
Related event: BoltzMol-1 finds WRN inhibitors in ten days for under $10K(2 posts)→
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