Generalists vs. Specialists in Biomolecule Optimization
Evaluating the performance gap between LLMs and specialized solvers
This research introduces a novel benchmark for comparing general-purpose LLMs against specialized solvers in biophysical sequence optimization tasks.
- Specialized solvers like LaMBO-2 offer greater efficiency and constraint satisfaction
- LLMs struggle with precise constraints despite their broad capabilities
- Introduces Ehrlich functions as a synthetic test suite that mimics biophysical optimization structures
- Provides a framework for evaluating trade-offs between generalist and specialist approaches
For biology applications, this work enables more informed decisions about when to use general AI models versus domain-specific solutions, potentially accelerating biomolecule design while reducing computational costs.