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Harvard licenses powerful molecular screening platform to Kyulux

“Our screening software has great potential to really change the nature of materials discovery in commercial R&D,” said Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik. Photo: © wongwean/Shutterstock

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A powerful materials discovery platform created at Harvard University to dramatically accelerate the process of screening millions of molecules for use in future technologies will now speed the commercial development of next-generation electronic displays. Harvard has licensed the deep-learning software platform, dubbed the Molecular Space Shuttle, to Kyulux, Inc., a Japan- and Boston-based developer of OLED display and lighting products.

The screening platform, featured last week in a Nature Materials publication, was developed by a group of Harvard researchers led by Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Professor in Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

The license agreement grants Kyulux the right to use the copyrighted software in the discovery of materials for display and lighting applications. Coordinated by the Harvard Office of Technology Development (OTD), the agreement puts the innovative platform to work in the development of useful new products, in a company that is now expanding its presence in the Boston area.

“Our screening software has great potential to really change the nature of materials discovery in commercial R&D,” said Aspuru-Guzik. “As new cheminformatics and machine-learning methods are adopted across fields that have been limited by computational cost or manpower, it will open up a wide realm of new technological possibilities.”