Deep learning is widely used in chemistry and can rival human chemists in certain scenarios. Inspired by molecule generation in new drug discovery, we present a deep-learning-based approach to reaction generation with the Trans-VAE model. To examine how exploratory and innovative the model is in reaction generation, we constructed the dataset by time splitting. We used the Michael addition reaction as a generation vehicle and took these reactions reported before a certain date as the training set and explored whether the model could generate reactions that were reported after that date. We took 2010 and 2015 as time points for splitting the reported Michael addition reaction; among the generated reactions, 911 and 487 reactions were applied in the experiments after the respective split time points, accounting for 12.75% and 16.29% of all reported reactions after each time point.

Description of molecular stereostructure is critical for the machine learning prediction of asymmetric catalysis. Herein we report a spherical projection descriptor of molecular stereostructure (SPMS), which allows precise representation of the molecular van der Waals (vdW) surface. The key features of SPMS descriptor are presented using the examples of chiral phosphoric acid, and the machine learning application is demonstrated in Denmark's dataset of asymmetric thiol addition to N-acylimines. In addition, SPMS descriptor also offers a color-coded diagram that provides straightforward chemical interpretation of the steric environment.