NuBank bank of nucleic bodies
Target triage · worldwide · remote

How many agents can hit this target — and how many cannot

Name a target. We return the count: how many active agents, from which classes, can act on it — and, for everything else, the specific reason it cannot. Most tools hand you a score for anything you ask. This one tells you when the honest answer is “no” or “not knowable yet”.

Scope

What can be a target

A target is whatever you want acted upon: an organism, one of its proteins, or a protein of your own body. Coverage differs by kind, and it is stated here rather than discovered by you halfway through.

Bacteria

full coverage

Strongest case. Whole-organism metabolic models exist, essential genes can be computed, and the result can be checked against drugs that already work. Tuberculosis, H. pylori, Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, MRSA have all been run through unmodified.

Parasites and protozoa

full coverage

Malaria and related organisms behave like bacteria for this purpose: they have their own metabolism, so the same reasoning applies without special cases.

Fungi

partial

Candida, Aspergillus and similar are reachable in principle, but fewer validated models exist and the selectivity question is harder: fungal and human cells are closer relatives than bacteria and humans.

Viruses

different method

A virus has no metabolism of its own, so the metabolic route does not apply. Two routes remain: viral proteins as direct targets, and host factors the virus depends on. We say which of the two we used — conflating them is a common way to be confidently wrong.

Tumour cells

partial

Human metabolic models exist and can be run, but the selectivity question dominates everything: the target sits inside the patient. We do not issue a therapeutic window.

Human proteins

structure route

Non-infectious targets — a receptor, an antagonist, a signalling protein. Here the question is structural, not metabolic: is there anything on this protein to bind at all. We have returned “no pocket” on our own project rather than force a design.

Out of scope

refused

Anything requiring a human trial to answer: dosing in patients, safety, efficacy, drug–drug interaction. Also anything defined only as a disease name rather than a molecular target — “cure diabetes” is not a target.

The deliverable

At this stage the product answers one question

Can this target be hit — and by how many agents? Every candidate in the bank comes back in exactly one of four buckets. The last two are the reason this exists.

A · Can be hit

N agents from M classes act on this target, listed by class with what each one is based on. Reproducible: the same inputs give the same list.

B · Cannot be hit

Zero agents pass, and the reason is named: no pocket on the protein, the function is dispensable to the organism, the target is not distinguishable from its human counterpart, or nothing in the bank reaches that compartment.

C · Answers a different question

A number comes out, but not the one you asked for. Our own example: the model says an enzyme is dispensable for growth — while without it the organism cannot colonise the stomach at all. The number is correct. The question is wrong. This bucket catches the failure that quietly wastes the most money.

D · Not computable

Refused, with which piece is missing: no model for this organism, no reference to check against, or a question the method is not entitled to answer. In the last full run this was the majority of candidates — and that is the honest state of the field, not a defect of the tool.

What you do not get: a probability of cure, a ranking that pretends the last two buckets are empty, or a number without the reasoning that produced it.

The bank

What is being collected

Seventy-four classes of intervention, each with its own vocabulary, gathered from open scientific sources. The bank grows with every target run: a class that had no candidates last month may have three today. Nothing here is restricted to what has already been tried on your target.

Nucleic bodies Antisense oligonucleotides, siRNA, aptamers, ribozymes, mRNA constructs. the anchor class — hence the name
Nanobodies and antibodies VHH single-domain nanobodies, monoclonals, fragments, bispecifics.
Bacteriophages Lytic phages, phage cocktails, engineered phages, phage-derived lysins.
Oncolytic and vector viruses Viruses used as the agent rather than the target, and as delivery vehicles.
Peptides Antimicrobial peptides, bacteriocins, peptidomimetics, stapled peptides.
Small molecules Including repurposing candidates — approved drugs with a second use.
Enzymes and toxins Enzybiotics, degrading enzymes, protein toxins with a targeting domain.
Gene editing CRISPR systems and base editors, where delivery to the target is plausible.
Metal complexes Bismuth, silver, tellurium and related compounds with documented activity.
Living agents Probiotic strains, engineered bacteria, microbiome interventions.
Physical and photodynamic Photosensitisers, light, controlled reactive oxygen species.
Natural products Plant and microbial compounds with a documented mechanism, not folk claims.
The name

Why a bank, and why “Nu”

Nu — nucleic

The collection started with nucleic bodies: oligonucleotides, siRNA, aptamers. They remain the anchor class because they can be designed against a sequence when no pocket exists on the protein — which is exactly where most target work stops. The header of this site says it in full: bank of nucleic bodies.

Bank — because it accumulates

A search engine answers and forgets. A bank keeps. Every target that passes through leaves behind classified candidates, dead ends with their reasons, and vocabulary that makes the next target cheaper to assess. What is deposited is not compounds — it is the ability to act on a target, and the record of where that ability runs out.

Audience

Who this is for

In each case the value is the same: finding out early that a direction is closed, instead of finding out after the budget is spent.

Drug repurposing companies

You lose money on hypotheses nobody could kill. A properly produced negative result, early, is worth more than a survivor that was never tested hard.

Academic groups without a computational team

You have the target and the bench. You do not have three months of a modeller's time to find out whether the target is reachable at all.

Early-stage biotech choosing a target

Before you commit a programme to one target, get the count of what could possibly act on it — and the list of what cannot, with reasons.

Investors and grant committees

Independent assessment of somebody else's claim. Specifically useful when the pitch says “druggable” and you want to know on what basis.

Clinicians facing resistance

When the standard regimen has failed, the question is what else exists at all — including classes outside the usual pharmacy.

Anyone holding a target nobody will look at

Neglected diseases, rare organisms, unfashionable targets. The engine does not care whether a target is commercially popular.

Evidence

What has actually been checked

Two of these numbers need explaining, and without the explanation they flatter us. Both explanations are below: a figure you cannot interrogate is not evidence.

7 / 7Known drug targets recovered on a reference organism, negative control included
5 / 7Blind test on compounds the engine had never seen
121 + 72Essential genes reproduced against a published figure of 128 + 75
36 / 38Reference compounds recovered where a reference exists

Why 5 of 7 and not 12 of 12

The first run scored 12 of 12 and was worth nothing: the tasks were written after we could see how the engine behaved, and tested with the same compounds it had been tuned on. On compounds it had never seen it scored 5 of 7. The gap between those two numbers is the price of an honest test.

Why coverage is the real gap

The 36-of-38 score is computed over 38 classes out of 74. For the other 36 there is no reference compound at all — nothing to check against. Half the engine is measured by nothing, and a high score does not apply to it. We say this before you ask.

Limits

What this is not

Stated first, not buried. If any of these is a dealbreaker, better that we both find out now.

  • Not a digital twin of an organism. It is a metabolic model. No acidity in it, no membrane potential, no mucus, no human.
  • No probability of cure is issued. Not now, and not until there are wet-lab results of our own to calibrate against.
  • No laboratory validation on any branch. There is no lab. Everything here is computation and open literature.
  • Not medical advice. Nothing here is a treatment recommendation for any person.
  • Green tests do not prove a correct number. We were burned by exactly that, which is why verification is by reference recovery rather than by test suite.
L1Literature graph
L2Quantitative mechanistic modelwe are here
L3Model validated against known outcomespartly
L4Laboratory-confirmed twinnot reached
Track record

We have stopped our own projects twice

A patent filing, withdrawn

We found a lapsed 2003 application that disclosed our idea in full — and cancelled our own filing rather than argue around it.

165 designs, none of which bound

Across three formats, nothing worked. Instead of tuning until something did, we established the cause was a property of the target itself — and found a systematic bias in the tool along the way.

Repurposing programmes lose money on the opposite behaviour: on people who cannot stop. That is the capability being sold here, and the bank is what makes it repeatable.

Access

Submitting a target is by request

The working part of this site is closed and the method is not published. To have a target assessed, write to the administrator — through the form below or straight to kadirbekov@nubank.uz. Name the target and the decision the answer has to support; the second part matters more.

Submit a target

No obligation on either side. If the bank has nothing useful to say about your target, you will be told that instead of being sold a report.

Write by email instead
Contact

Administrator

Emailkadirbekov@nubank.uz Targets, questions, materials
ResponseUsually within a day Time zone UTC+5
Working areaClosed Opened by the administrator after a conversation