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  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="iso-abbrev">Pharmacophore</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">pharmacophorejournal.com</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">Pharmacophore</journal-id>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Pharmacophore</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="epub">2229-5402</issn>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">pharmacophorejournal.com-6984</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.51847/WotZIrvAZL</article-id>
      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
          <subject>Original research</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Beyond Static Protein–Ligand Fit: A Conceptual Architecture for Incorporating Conformational Ensembles, Binding Kinetics, and Cellular Context into Artificial Intelligence–Assisted Molecular Modeling and Drug Design.</article-title>
      </title-group>
                    <contrib-group>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Osei</surname>
                <given-names>Michael</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Larsen</surname>
                <given-names>Ingrid</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff2" ref-type="aff">2</xref>
                                                            <xref rid="cor1" ref-type="corresp" />
                          </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Menon</surname>
                <given-names>Rajesh</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff3" ref-type="aff">3</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Berg</surname>
                <given-names>Julia</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff4" ref-type="aff">4</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                  </contrib-group>
                  <aff id="aff1">
            <label>1</label>Department of Structural Biology and AI-Assisted Drug Design, University of Ghana Business School, Accra, Ghana.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff2">
            <label>2</label>Department of Molecular Modeling and Computational Biophysics, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff3">
            <label>3</label>Department of Pharmacoinformatics and Molecular Dynamics, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff4">
            <label>4</label>Department of Drug Design and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
          </aff>
                          <author-notes>
            <corresp id="cor1">
              <bold>Address for correspondence:</bold> Prof. Wael Abu Dayyih, Department of
              Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mutah University, Al-Karak 61710, Jordan.
                              E-mail: <email xlink:href="ingrid.larsen@bi.no">ingrid.larsen@bi.no</email>
                          </corresp>
          </author-notes>
                    <pub-date pub-type="epub">
        <day>28</day>
        <month>10</month>
        <year>2026</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>17</volume>
      <issue>5</issue>
      <fpage>17</fpage>
      <lpage>25</lpage>
      <permissions>
        <copyright-statement>
          Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Pharmacophore
        </copyright-statement>
        <copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
        <license>
          <ali:license_ref xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/"
            specific-use="textmining" content-type="ccbyncsalicense">
            https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/</ali:license_ref>
          <license-p>This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of
            the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows
            others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate
            credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.</license-p>
        </license>
      </permissions>
      <abstract>
        <title>A<sc>BSTRACT</sc></title>
        <p>Artificial intelligence has markedly expanded the ability to predict protein structures, protein–ligand complexes, binding poses, and molecular properties, yet much of AI-assisted molecular modeling still treats binding as a predominantly static structural problem. This assumption is limiting because molecular action emerges from distributions of conformational states, transitions among those states, time-dependent association and dissociation, and biological environments that can alter target accessibility, engagement, and selectivity. This conceptual architecture article examines how these information layers should be incorporated without replacing interpretable molecular modeling with untestable complexity. The analysis distinguishes four related but non-equivalent representational problems: geometrical fit, conformational-state occupancy, binding kinetics, and cellular context. It argues that richer modeling is useful only when each added layer changes a testable observation, comparison, or drug-design decision and when validation is matched to the level of inference being made. Conformational ensembles can reveal alternative pockets and ligand-dependent states, but they require experimental or physics-informed constraints. Binding kinetics can distinguish compounds with similar equilibrium affinity, but residence time is not inherently advantageous. Cellular measurements can expose target engagement and polypharmacology that isolated complexes cannot represent, yet cellular engagement does not establish therapeutic efficacy. A dynamic molecular-modeling architecture should therefore preserve these layers as distinct sources of evidence while connecting them selectively through falsifiable cross-level relationships. The resulting approach reframes AI-assisted molecular modeling from  prediction of a best-fitting complex toward conditional  inference about molecular behavior across structure, time, and biological context.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
                <kwd>Conformational ensembles</kwd>
                <kwd>Binding kinetics</kwd>
                <kwd>Protein–ligand interactions</kwd>
                <kwd>Molecular dynamics</kwd>
                <kwd>Artificial intelligence</kwd>
                <kwd>Target engagement</kwd>
              </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
</article>
