Why aren't we using LLM's to chemically redesign old drugs?
The author experimented with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin and queried ChatGPT for potential improvements. The AI suggested a neutral, asymmetric Pt(IV) prodrug that binds albumin and includes a glutathione‑synthesis inhibitor to limit premature activation. The proposal aims to create a less reactive circulating molecule that converts to active cisplatin only after tumor uptake.
- ▪The author used cisplatin as a test case and asked ChatGPT to redesign the drug.
- ▪ChatGPT proposed a Pt(IV) prodrug with an albumin‑binding axial ligand and a glutathione‑synthesis inhibitor.
- ▪The design seeks to reduce reactivity in the bloodstream and release active cisplatin within tumors.
- ▪The article argues that simply making a stronger cisplatin is not the optimal strategy.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 5 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Why aren't we using "Her"? – state of consumer voice AI — Frisson Labs
Hacker News (AI / LLM) files mainly under ai. We currently carry 2,502 of its stories.
Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
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Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | Ycombinator |
| Canonical URL | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49074935 |
| Publication time | Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:10:45 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-27T20:34:00.591Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-27T20:34:00.591Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | GJg_notn-N_S · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
I was fooling around with Cisplatin, a chemo drug that made testicular cancer curable. Then I was like, I wonder how Chat GPT would improve this drug. It tried. Is this a good idea?"The best chemical improvement is unlikely to be “a stronger cisplatin.” It should be a less reactive circulating molecule that becomes ordinary cisplatin only after tumor uptake. My preferred candidate is therefore: A neutral, asymmetric cisplatin-based Pt(IV) prodrug with one stabilized albumin-binding axial ligand and one reduction-released glutathione-synthesis inhibitor, with the axial electronics deliberately tuned to prevent premature blood reduction."
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ycombinator.