<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD with MathML3 v1.3 20210610//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1-3-mathml3.dtd"><article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
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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-6944</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.51847/Y4s7rY0dzz</article-id>
      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
          <subject>Original research</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>The Digital Molecular Twin as a Living Account of Structure, Dynamics, Binding, Metabolism, Toxicity, and Off-Target Risk</article-title>
      </title-group>
                    <contrib-group>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Keller</surname>
                <given-names>Laura</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                                            <xref rid="cor1" ref-type="corresp" />
                          </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Lehmann</surname>
                <given-names>Thomas</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Brunner</surname>
                <given-names>Simon</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff2" ref-type="aff">2</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Meier</surname>
                <given-names>Christoph</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff3" ref-type="aff">3</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                  </contrib-group>
                  <aff id="aff1">
            <label>1</label>Department of Digital Molecular Twins and Living Accounts, Faculty of Pharmacy, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff2">
            <label>2</label>Department of Structure–Dynamics–Binding Integration, Faculty of Pharmacy, EPFL Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff3">
            <label>3</label>Department of Metabolism–Toxicity–Off-Target Risk Modeling, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
          </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="laura.keller@pharma.ethz.ch">laura.keller@pharma.ethz.ch</email>
                          </corresp>
          </author-notes>
                    <pub-date pub-type="epub">
        <day>28</day>
        <month>12</month>
        <year>2025</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>16</volume>
      <issue>6</issue>
      <fpage>99</fpage>
      <lpage>108</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>Computational drug discovery commonly represents a molecule through a fixed chemical graph, descriptor vector, three-dimensional conformer, or learned embedding and then evaluates that representation against one or more isolated prediction tasks. Although such representations are useful, they cannot by themselves maintain an evolving account of how molecular identity, conformational behavior, target engagement, metabolism, toxicity, and off-target interactions change with biological context and accumulating evidence. This article proposes the digital molecular twin as a versioned, molecule-specific computational architecture rather than as a single predictive model. The proposed construct comprises linked state variables for molecular identity, structural ensembles, dynamics, binding, disposition, metabolic transformation, toxicity, and off-target risk; an evidence ledger that preserves source conditions and provenance; update operators that integrate simulation and experimental observations without silently overwriting prior states; a counterfactual query layer for examining possible lead-optimization changes; and an uncertainty layer that records model, data, sampling, and context limitations. The central contribution is an architectural distinction between predicting an endpoint and maintaining a living, auditable account of the evidence relevant to a molecule. The framework further separates association from mechanism, prediction from experimental confirmation, benchmark performance from pharmaceutical usefulness, and local technical validity from decision fitness. It is presented as an original conceptual and methodological synthesis that requires prospective evaluation, domain-specific calibration, and human oversight. It does not establish universal state definitions, validated causal inference, clinical utility, regulatory acceptability, autonomous optimization, or operational readiness. By organizing heterogeneous computational and experimental evidence around explicit states, versions, uncertainties, and decision boundaries, the digital molecular twin may provide a disciplined basis for developing more traceable and scientifically bounded molecular reasoning systems.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
                <kwd>Digital molecular twin</kwd>
                <kwd>Molecular state representation</kwd>
                <kwd>Molecular dynamics</kwd>
                <kwd>Binding free energy</kwd>
                <kwd>Predictive ADMET</kwd>
                <kwd>Off-target risk</kwd>
              </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
</article>