Kenneth Merz, PhD, of Cleveland Clinic's Center for Computational Life Sciences, and his team are testing quantum computing’s abilities in chemistry through integrating machine learning and quantum circuits.  

Chemistry is one of the areas where quantum computing shows the most potential because of the technology’s ability to predict an unlimited number of possible outcomes. To determine quantum computing's ability to perform complex chemical calculations, Dr. Merz and Hongni Jin, PhD, decided to test its ability to simulate proton affinity, a fundamental chemical process that is critical to life. 

Dr. Merz and Dr. Jin focused on using machine learning applications on quantum hardware. This is a critical advantage over other quantum research which relies on simulators to mimic a quantum computer’s abilities. In this study, published in the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, the team was able to demonstrate the capabilities of quantum machine learning by creating a model that was able to predict proton affinity more accurately than classical computing.  

A wife and husband professor team at Michigan State University are collaborating with researchers at the University of California, Riverside to create a new light-activated “smart” bomb to treat aggressive breast cancer.

Sophia Lunt, an MSU professor in biochemistry and molecular biology in the College of Natural Science, and Richard Lunt, an MSU professor and Johansen-Crosby Endowed Professor in Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering, along with Vincent Lavallo, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Riverside, have combined their expertise to help develop new light-sensitive chemicals called cyanine-carborane salts that are used in photodynamic therapy, or PDT, to destroy metastatic breast cancer tumors in mice with minimal side effects.

A new large language model framework teaches LLMs to use an optimization solving algorithm to resolve complex, multistep planning tasks. With the LLMFP framework, someone can input a natural language description of their problem and receive a plan to reach their desired goal.