[User Research] How researchers work with scientific papers in drug discovery workflows

[Estabeed]

Hi OpenFreeEnergy community,

I'm David Esteban, a User Experience (UX) designer working on a YC-backed startup developing a tool to help researchers in drug discovery and molecular modeling work more efficiently with scientific papers.

The challenge we're exploring:
Researchers spend 4+ hours reading and extracting data from a single paper. We're investigating ways to reduce this while maintaining scientific rigour and accuracy.

I'm conducting user research to understand:

• How drug discovery researchers work with scientific literature
• Workflows for extracting protein structure and binding affinity data
• How tools like OpenFreeEnergy, PDB, and other computational tools integrate with literature review

Looking for participants who:

• Work in drug discovery, computational chemistry, free energy calculations, or related fields
• Regularly read scientific papers as part of their research workflow
• Are available for a 20-25 minute video interview (Thursday 8th - Thursday 15th January 2026)

Two ways to help:

1. Complete this 2-min screener: https://forms.gle/he4r7QA34Bn3nqsX6
2. Participate in a video interview (if selected)

Your insights will directly shape the design of this tool. I'm happy to share findings with the community once the research is complete!

Thanks for your time, and apologies if this isn't appropriate for this forum.