Molecular Similarity Search

SkillSearch

Search for similar molecules using Tanimoto similarity with Morgan fingerprints to identify structurally related compounds.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the Molecular Similarity Search skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by spectrai-initiative/innoclaw in .claude/skills/molecular-similarity-search/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Usage

1. MCP Server Definition

import asyncio
import json
from contextlib import AsyncExitStack
from mcp.client.streamable_http import streamablehttp_client
from mcp import ClientSession

class DrugSDAClient:
    """DrugSDA-Tool MCP Client"""

    def __init__(self, server_url: str, api_key: str):
        self.server_url = server_url
        self.api_key = api_key
        self.session = None

    async def connect(self):
        """Establish connection and initialize session"""
        print(f"server url: {self.server_url}")
        try:
            self.transport = streamablehttp_client(
                url=self.server_url,
                headers={"SCP-HUB-API-KEY": self.api_key}
            )
            self._stack = AsyncExitStack()
            await self._stack.__aenter__()
            self.read, self.write, self.get_session_id = await self._stack.enter_async_context(self.transport)

            self.session_ctx = ClientSession(self.read, self.write)
            self.session = await self._stack.enter_async_context(self.session_ctx)

            await self.session.initialize()
            session_id = self.get_session_id()

            print(f"✓ connect success")
            return True

        except Exception as e:
            print(f"✗ connect failure: {e}")
            return False

    async def disconnect(self):
        """Disconnect from server"""
        try:
            if hasattr(self, '_stack'):
                await self._stack.aclose()
            print("✓ already disconnect")
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"✗ disconnect error: {e}")
    def parse_result(self, result):
        """Parse MCP tool call result"""
        try:
            if hasattr(result, 'content') and result.content:
                content = result.content[0]
                if hasattr(content, 'text'):
                    return json.loads(content.text)
            return str(result)
        except Exception as e:
            return {"error": f"parse error: {e}", "raw": str(result)}

2. Molecular Similarity Search Workflow

This workflow searches for similar molecules using Tanimoto similarity calculated from Morgan fingerprints.

Workflow Steps:

  1. Define Target Molecule - Specify the query SMILES
  2. Define Candidate Molecules - Provide list of candidate SMILES
  3. Calculate Similarity - Compute Tanimoto scores for all candidates
  4. Rank Results - Sort by similarity score to find most similar molecules

Implementation:

## Initialize client
client = DrugSDAClient(
    "https://scp.intern-ai.org.cn/api/v1/mcp/2/DrugSDA-Tool",
    "<your-api-key>"
)

if not await client.connect():
    print("connection failed")
    exit()

## Input: Target molecule and candidate library
target = "CCO"  # Ethanol
candidates = [
    "CCCO",      # Propanol
    "CCCCO",     # Butanol
    "CC(C)O",    # Isopropanol
    "CCC(C)O",   # sec-Butanol
    "C1CC1",     # Cyclopropane
    "CC=O",      # Acetaldehyde
    "CCCOO"      # Propanoic acid
]

## Execute similarity calculation
result = await client.session.call_tool(
    "calculate_smiles_similarity",
    arguments={
        "target_smiles": target,
        "candidate_smiles_list": candidates
    }
)

result_data = client.parse_result(result)
similarities = result_data['similarities']

## Sort and display top 3 most similar molecules
top3_smiles = sorted(similarities, key=lambda x: x['score'], reverse=True)[:3]

print(f"Target molecule: {target}\n")
print("Top 3 most similar molecules:")
for i, item in enumerate(top3_smiles, 1):
    print(f"{i}. {item['smiles']} - Tanimoto score: {item['score']:.4f}")

await client.disconnect()

Tool Descriptions

DrugSDA-Tool Server:

  • calculate_smiles_similarity: Compute molecular similarity using Morgan fingerprints
    • Args:
      • target_smiles (str): Query molecule SMILES string
      • candidate_smiles_list (list): List of candidate molecule SMILES strings
    • Returns:
      • similarities (list): List of similarity scores
        • smiles (str): Candidate SMILES string
        • score (float): Tanimoto similarity (0-1)

Input/Output

Input:

  • target_smiles: SMILES string of the query molecule
  • candidate_smiles_list: List of SMILES strings to compare against

Output:

  • List of similarity results:
    • smiles: Candidate molecule SMILES
    • score: Tanimoto similarity coefficient (0-1)
      • 1.0 = identical molecules
      • 0.7 = highly similar

      • 0.4-0.7 = moderately similar
      • <0.4 = dissimilar

Similarity Interpretation

  • Score > 0.85: Very high similarity, likely same scaffold
  • Score 0.7-0.85: High similarity, similar pharmacophore
  • Score 0.5-0.7: Moderate similarity, related structures
  • Score < 0.5: Low similarity, different chemical space

Use Cases

  • Virtual screening and library filtering
  • Scaffold hopping in drug design
  • Chemical space exploration
  • Lead compound identification
  • Analog searching in compound databases
  • Structure-activity relationship studies

Performance Notes

  • Execution time: <1 second for up to 1000 candidates
  • Fingerprint: Morgan fingerprint (radius 2, 2048 bits)
  • Algorithm: Tanimoto coefficient for binary fingerprints
  • Scalability: Efficient for large compound libraries

Signals

GitHub stars
391
Forks
28
Last commit
Aug 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
molecular-similarity-search-spectrai-initiative
Source
github.com/spectrai-initiative/innoclaw