The University of New Orleans Bioinformatics and Machine Learning Laboratory, led by Dr. Md Tamjidul Hoque, has earned international recognition after winning top honors in the Critical Assessment of Intrinsic Disorder (CAID) competitions twice in a row. The achievement underscores UNO’s growing leadership in applying artificial intelligence to biological and biomedical research.
In the December 2024 CAID-3 competition, whose results were finalized in July 2025, the lab’s AI tools ESMDisPred-2PDB (1st), ESMDisPred-1 (2nd), and ESMDisPred-2 (3rd) captured all top three positions worldwide in the NOX dataset category, the most competitive benchmark for predicting intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). The leading model ESMDisPred-2PDB achieved the highest performance across every evaluation metric, establishing a new global benchmark for IDP modeling accuracy.
This marks the lab’s second consecutive victory in the CAID series. In CAID-2 (2022), UNO’s earlier tool, DisPredict3.0, achieved the number one position worldwide in the same NOX dataset category, establishing a foundation for continued success.
“These results demonstrate that UNO’s research in artificial intelligence and bioinformatics competes at the highest international level,” said Dr. Hoque, professor of computer science and director of the Bioinformatics and Machine Learning Laboratory. He humbly acknowledged the dedicated efforts of his Ph.D. student, Md Wasi Ul Kabir, whose technical leadership was instrumental in the competition results, as well as the strong support of the Department of Computer Science and funding provided through LBRN subawards. “This success reflects the innovation and perseverance of our team and reinforces UNO’s role as a global contributor to scientific discovery.”
