The SAMPL6 SAMPLing challenge: Assessing the reliability and efficiency of binding free energy calculations

Andrea Rizzi, Travis Jensen, David R. Slochower, Matteo Aldeghi, Vytautas Gapsys, Dimitris Ntekoumes, Stefano Bosisio, Michail Papadourakis, Niel M. Henriksen, Bert L. de Groot, Zoe Cournia, Alex Dickson, Julien Michel, Michael K. Gilson, Michael R. Shirts, David L. Mobley, and John D. Chodera
Journal of Computer Aided Molecular Design 34:601, 2020. [DOI] [PDF] [bioRxiv] [GitHub]

To assess the relative efficiencies of alchemical binding free energy calculations, the SAMPL6 SAMPLing challenge asked participants to submit predictions as a function of computer effort for the same force field and charge model. Surprisingly, we found that most molecular simulation codes cannot agree on the binding free energy was, even for the same force field.