Leash Bio releases Minos, an agent sandbox for verifiable scientific reasoning
A Latent Space episode features Ian Quigley of Leash Bio, which uses DNA-encoded libraries (DELs) to collect high-throughput protein–small molecule interaction data. The show says that data can supply tens of thousands of "lab-in-the-loop" simulations for scientific RL by agents, and has matured into Minos, with Leash Bio releasing a full preprint, blog and open dataset the same day. The episode also says Hermes, trained only on Leash Bio's own data, keeps pace with Boltz on public benchmarks, and that in its Kaggle competition about 2,000 teams failed to beat chance on an unseen chemical library. These claims come from the podcast description; the preprint and dataset are not included in the supplied material.
According to Latent Space, Leash Bio says its years of DEL data can be turned into tens of thousands of lab-in-the-loop simulations for agents doing verifiable scientific reasoning RL.
A few years ago I stumbled upon Leash Bio’s Substack, and was hooked. Be it their Kaggle competition that showed that no, we really haven’t solved protein-ligand binding, or their crazy discovery that knowing a molecule’s author is perhaps all you need to know to predict how good it is. Their substack — or at least Owl Posting’s1 deep dive on them — should be required reading for any scientist trying to do chemistry with AI.
So I was super excited to finally be able to sit down with Ian Quigley from Leash Bio, and pick his brain. Leash specializes in DNA Encoded Libraries (aka “DELs”), a way of collecting ridiculously high-throughput interaction data between proteins and small molecules.2 Before I discovered Leash, I had heard nothing but horror stories from DEL users. And yet, Ian and friends somehow found a way to tame the beast, extracting clean and reproducible data that is just perfect for large scale modeling. Without teasing too much, the answer comes down to epistemic rigor, and an incredible conviction that you just have to Do The Thing.
#Leash Bio#Minos#Hermes#Boltz#ChEMBL#Recursion#DNA-encoded libraries