18. February 2026
(CONNECT) Nuclera and leadXpro from the canton of Aargau have announced a scientific partnership to advance structural studies and therapeutic development. Nuclera with headquarters in Cambridge in the UK also has a subsidiary in Billerica in the US state of Massachusetts. Through their collaboration, the partners are bringing together Nuclera’s platform to pair the production and analysis of membrane protein variants with leadXpro’s construct design driven by artificial intelligence (AI) as well as its biophysical and structural expertise. The goal is to establish an AI-guided end-to-end workflow, from computer-aided planning to experimental testing and high-resolution structure determination.
Through rapid screening methods, precise structural analyses and data-driven optimization loops, the partners want to enable faster complex membrane protein characterization and make them more reliably usable. Membrane proteins are among the most valuable targets of modern drugs but have so far been notoriously challenging to express and purify in sufficient quality and quantity. The promising protein variants are first identified experimentally and then undergo detailed biophysical characterization at leadXpro and structure determination using cryo-electron microscopy. This data will in turn be integrated into AI models for construct design and stability predictions, improving yields, functionality and success rates.
“Nuclera’s eProtein Discovery platform provides a robust, rapid, and reproducible approach to exploring construct space. Combined with our established AI/ML and structural biology expertise, this integration allows us to support better design decisions earlier and accelerate the progression of promising drug candidates,” commented Michael Hennig, CEO of leadXpro. ce/ja
