Two Alumni Honored with Prizes for Innovative Usage of AI

Caltech alumnus Zhuoran Qiao (PhD '23), a machine learning scientist and founding scientist of San Francisco-based Chai Discovery, has received the grand prize of the inaugural Chen Institute and SciencePrize for AI Accelerated Research for his innovative usage of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to accelerate scientific discovery in biochemistry.

At Caltech, Qiao earned his PhD in chemistry under the advisory of Anima Anandkumar, a Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, and former Caltech faculty member Thomas Miller, co-founder and CEO of Iambic Therapeutics. Qiao's thesis research centered on developing machine learning methods for computational modeling of chemical systems, which traditionally are challenging to model.

Now, building on Nobel Prize-winning research that uses generative AI technologies to predict how proteins fold, Qiao uses sophisticated machine learning techniques to create dynamic models that show how folded proteins change over time—and, importantly, how they interact with smaller molecules. The result is a "computational microscope" that can predict with remarkable speed and accuracy how proteins will behave, enabling powerful new tools for drug discovery.

"We're unlocking a huge opportunity to map out these molecular interactions at an unprecedented scale—and to leverage that to rapidly develop new drugs and treatments," Qiao says.

Applicants for the prize each submitted a 1,000-word essay describing their work that was judged by an independent committee of Science editors. Qiao receives a cash award of $30,000, and his essay appears in today's issue of Science in print and online.

Alumnus Aditya Nair (PhD '25), currently a postdoctoral fellow and National Institutes of Health BRAIN NeuroAI Early Career Scholar at Caltech and Stanford University, was one of two runners-up for the prize. Nair is using AI and leveraging breakthroughs in neural imaging to reveal the hidden choruses and harmonies that emerge as neurons interact with one another. His work shows that these interactions form durable self-perpetuating patterns that can encode and modulate long-lasting mental or emotional states—such as arousal, anger, or hunger—independently of any individual neuron's activity. His models also reveal that these long-lasting network effects are mediated by slow-acting neuropeptides, making them more robust over time.

At Caltech, Nair studied in the laboratory of David Anderson, the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and director and Leadership Chair of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech.

Qiao and Nair, along with finalist Alizée Roobaert of Flanders Marine Institute in Belgium, will present their research at the first annual Chen Institute Symposium for AI Accelerated Science in San Francisco this fall.

The Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience was established at Caltech in 2016 through a $115 million gift from philanthropists Tianqiao Chen and Chrissy Luo.