Harvard Team Unveils FIND Drug Screening Platform

Researchers at Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital developed a high-throughput method that identifies molecules by how they alter protein interactions.

Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Biotech

Clear glass microplate wells with faint blue liquid and a pipette tip on a pale lab bench under soft window light, suggesting a drug screening laboratory. — Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital researchers unveiled FIND, a high-throughput drug screening platform that identifies molecules by how they alter protein interactions. AI Illustration. Upload story photo >

Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital researchers have developed FIND, a high-throughput drug screening platform, as described in a study published in Science. The platform uses DNA nanoswitches to identify molecules that change how proteins interact.

Why it matters

FIND offers a way to screen large molecular libraries based on protein interaction effects rather than only direct binding. The approach could help identify starting points for new medicines and research tools.

The research team screened a library of 400 million small molecule drugs targeting PPAR-gamma, and FIND identified compounds that promote PPAR's interaction with a fragment of the protein CBP. The extraction provides no comparator benchmark for these screening results, and the platform's drug discovery potential remains to be established.

The players

Harvard University

Harvard is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States.

Boston Children's Hospital

Boston Children's Hospital is a pediatric medical center in Boston and a major teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

The details

FIND selects drug candidates by their ability to influence interactions between two proteins, building on DNA nanoswitch technology originally developed by Wong's research group. When two attached proteins bind, a DNA strand forms a loop that identifies the protein pair by its encoded barcode, and each candidate stays linked to its own experiment. The platform also identified a nanobody that modulates the interaction between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and its receptor on human cells.

November 5, 2026: Study demonstrating the FIND platform published in Science.

Big Picture

FIND extends the DNA nanoswitch technology originally developed by Wong's research group from protein interaction studies into a high-throughput drug screening platform. The approach shifts screening toward molecules that alter how proteins interact, rather than relying only on direct binding.

Readers following biomedical research in the Boston area may see the platform's applications develop as Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital researchers pursue further work. The molecules identified could eventually inform new medicines or research tools, though the source gives no timeline for that development.

The takeaway

FIND shows that screening molecules by how they change protein interactions can reveal candidates that direct binding assays might miss. Its eventual value will depend on the follow-up development the researchers have said is still needed.