Soley Therapeutics has announced the publication of a groundbreaking study in Scientific Reports detailing a new approach to drug discovery called “Live Cell Dynamics,” which captures how living cells sense and respond to drugs over time. This innovative method challenges traditional, static drug screening techniques by focusing on the dynamic, real-time behavior of cells rather than isolated snapshots. The research demonstrates that the evolving stress responses of live cells to drug exposure contain rich, mechanistic information about whether a cell will survive, adapt, or die—data often overlooked by conventional assays. The study, led by Soley’s Co-founder and CEO Yerem Yeghiazarians, M.D., and Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Kurosh Ameri, Ph.D., is the culmination of over a decade of research into how cells process external signals. Instead of relying on endpoint measurements or genetically modified reporter cells, Soley’s approach uses label-free, live-cell imaging to monitor untreated, natural cells over extended periods. This allows the capture of subtle, time- and dose-dependent changes in cell behavior without the need for dyes or fluorescent tags. By applying proprietary self-supervised machine learning algorithms to these live images, the team extracted detailed insights into drug mechanisms, including toxicity, selectivity, and mode of action—even for compounds with identical targets or similar outcomes like cell death. The findings reveal that traditional binary readouts and morphology-only profiling fail to capture the complexity of cellular responses, especially in diseases with intricate biological networks. “This work reflects more than a decade of foundational research into how cells sense and respond to drugs and other external signals,” said Yeghiazarians. “By focusing on the dynamic flow of information inside the cell, rather than static endpoints, we can delineate biology that conventional discovery methods often miss.” Ameri added, “We have now shown that live cells sense drugs dynamically and convey different mechanistic information, which is dose- and time-dependent. Our proprietary machine learning methods can extract information about drugs directly from live, unstained images. This ability to measure and interpret detailed information directly from live cells in a scalable and reproducible way demonstrates a significant advance in drug discovery.” The Live Cell Dynamics platform is a core component of Soley’s broader, AI-driven drug discovery system. The company combines automated high-throughput imaging, advanced cell biology, and full-stack AI—powered by Oracle’s OCI AI Infrastructure, NVIDIA AI Enterprise, and NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs—to analyze cellular responses at scale. This integrated approach enables Soley to identify novel drug candidates that might be missed by traditional target-based methods, accelerating the path from discovery to clinical development. The publication strengthens Soley’s growing body of peer-reviewed evidence supporting its biology-first strategy. The company is advancing multiple internally discovered programs in oncology, neurodegenerative disorders, metabolic diseases, and other complex conditions. By treating cells as natural sensors of drug activity, Soley aims to uncover first-in-class therapies with higher success rates and lower development costs. Headquartered in South San Francisco, Soley Therapeutics is pioneering a new paradigm in drug discovery—one rooted in the dynamic reality of living cells and powered by AI. The study not only validates the scientific foundation of its platform but also underscores a transformative shift in how medicines are discovered and developed.