SynthLens: Visual Analytics for Facilitating Multi-step Synthetic Route Design

TL;DR

SynthLens is a visual analytics system that helps researchers design synthetic routes for molecules by exploring multiple reaction pathways and evaluating them based on various criteria, streamlining complex decision-making.

Contribution

The paper introduces SynthLens, a novel visual analytics tool with tree visualization for multi-criteria synthetic route design, enhancing decision-making in chemical synthesis.

Findings

Validated through quantitative evaluation and expert interviews.

Improved decision-making efficiency in synthetic route planning.

Facilitated comprehensive exploration of multiple synthetic pathways.

Abstract

Designing synthetic routes for novel molecules is pivotal in various fields like medicine and chemistry. In this process, researchers need to explore a set of synthetic reactions to transform starting molecules into intermediates step by step until the target novel molecule is obtained. However, designing synthetic routes presents challenges for researchers. First, researchers need to make decisions among numerous possible synthetic reactions at each step, considering various criteria (e.g., yield, experimental duration, and the count of experimental steps) to construct the synthetic route. Second, they must consider the potential impact of one choice at each step on the overall synthetic route. To address these challenges, we proposed SynthLens, a visual analytics system to facilitate the iterative construction of synthetic routes by exploring multiple possibilities for synthetic reactions at each step of construction. Specifically, we have introduced a tree-form visualization in SynthLens to compare and evaluate all the explored routes at various exploration steps, considering both the exploration step and multiple criteria. Our system empowers researchers to consider their construction process comprehensively, guiding them toward promising exploration directions to complete the synthetic route. We validated the usability and effectiveness of SynthLens through a quantitative evaluation and expert interviews, highlighting its role in facilitating the design process of synthetic routes. Finally, we discussed the insights of SynthLens to inspire other multi-criteria decision-making scenarios with visual analytics.