CINF E-NEWS
Volume 3 Number 1
Fall 2001
Edited by Bruce Slutsky
Table of Contents
Editors Note
Message from the Chair
CommitteeReports
Awards Committee
Publications
Committee
Councilor's Report
Future Meetings
Sixth International Conference on Chemical Structures
Trisociety Symposium
Second Conference on the History and Heritage of Scientific and Technical
Information Systems
Chicago National ACS Meeting
4th National Chemical Information Symposium (NCIS)
Chemistry Site Seeing
CINF People in the News
Press
Chemical
Releases Abstracts
Service
FIZ CHEMIE
ChemWeb
CambridgeSoft
Editors Note - By the time you receive this CINF E-News you will have read
much of the details about the recent national tragedy. Almost everybody in
the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area must know of at least one
family affected by this tragedy. The wife of the Dean of Students of my
university perished in the catastrophe. I am sure that I speak for all CINF
members when I offer my condolences to the families of the thousands of
victims of the recent horrific events at the World Trade Center, Pentagon,
and Pennsylvania. It is quite sad that in this day and age a tragedy like this
can happen. We can only pray that an event like this will never happen
again. Bruce Slutsky
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
Dear CINF colleagues -The Chicago ACS National meeting has come and gone, and my year as
chair of CINF is quickly coming to a close. In this final message to the
membership, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the folks who
helped make this year a great one. There are lots of hardworking
volunteers in our division, and they truly made the all the various programs,
workshops, publications, and other events successful. In particular, I would
like to thank my fellow officers on the CINF executive committee, Division
Councilors, committee chairs, symposia organizers, NCIS organizers,
workshop instructors, committee members and everyone else who
contributed in any way in CINF activities.
I hope you will all take some time to check out materials on the CINF
website from the Chicago meeting, as well as from the 4th National
Chemical Information Symposium (NCIS), held earlier this summer. We are
planning some great programming for Orlando next spring, as well as some
presence at a couple of ACS Regional meetings. More news about these
events will be forthcoming over the winter.
With the beginning of a new year, there are opportunities for involvement in
CINF activities. If you would like to serve on a
committee, I encourage you to contact Andy Berks (Chair in 2002)
at andrew_berks@merck.com, or the various committee chairs to see what
openings are available. We are always looking for contributions to the
Chemical Information Bulletin and to the CINF E-NEWS, so please consider
writing an article. CINF is looking to expand its presence at Local Section
events; if you are active in your Local Section, and have an idea for CINF
involvement, please contact either Andy or myself.
I will always look back on this year with fond memories, and I look forward
to serving CINF in other capacities in the future.
Andrea Twiss-Brooks
COMMITTEE REPORTS
AWARDS COMMITTEE
2002 Herman Skolnik Awardee will be Peter Norton
The 2002 Herman Skolnik Award will be presented to Peter Norton at the
Fall ACS meeting in Boston. Peter is recognized for his pioneering work
with patent information coding systems which facilitated searching for both
specific and generic concepts and structures.. The majority of Peter s
career was spent with Derwent Publications Ltd. Where he developed the
Derwent CPI Manual Code, Chemical Fragmentation Code and the Plasdoc
Polymer Code. Later he played a lead role in the creation of the Markush
DARC topological indexing system. In addition to his work in developing
the coding systems, Peter also developed training materials and personally
trained both the indexing staff and hundreds of information scientists
around the world.
Awards Committee Report
August 25, 2001 - submitted by JoAnne Witiak
The Skolnik Award jury met and chose Peter Norton as the 2002 awardee.
The 2002 award nomination deadlines will be:
Lucile Wert Student Scholarship - March 2002
CINF Division Meritorious Service Award March 2002
Herman Skolnik Award June 2002
See the CINF web page for details on submitting a nomination.
Updates to the procedures manual were passed on to Andrea TwissBrooks. Our procedures will continue to be refined and the changes will be
reflected on the web pages.
The committee thanked Leo Clougherty, Erja Kajosalo, and Susanne
Redalje for their service as their terms come to a close.
Publications Committee Report - Submitted by Bruce Slutsky
Minutes of the CINF Publications Committee Meeting
Chicago August 26, 2001
Present for all or part of the meeting:
Bruce Slutsky Chair
Carol Carr Co-Chair
Graham Douglas
Grace Baysinger
Mike O Hara
Svetlana Korelov
Barbara Hurwitz
Marge Matthews
Bill Town
Maggie Johnson
Alan Engel
Sylvia Lee
Membership Directory
There were only 95 names in the Membership Directory in the Fall 2001
CIB. 111 CINF members whose names were offered from the National
ACS opted in since the original publication. Only 5 additional members
sent opt-in forms to Ann Bolek.
There were not opt-in forms for members to submit at this Chicago
meeting. Suggestions were made to include opt-in forms with ballots for
ACS elections and with dues renewal. A simple, removable, Membership
Directory opt-in form will be included on page 1 of the Spring 2002 CIB, for
visibility. Text recommendation to follow. (E.g. 'FAX ME NOW!', 'Publish
your name in the CINF Membership Directory', 'Communicate with
Speakers and Colleagues'. Eventually there will be an electronic ACS
membership directory from the web portal.
The committee decided not to publish a revised membership directory in the
Spring 2002 CIB.
Color Advertisements in the CIB
The committee loved the issue and the color ads were a hit. Revenue
of $5,900 and costs of about $5,800 are in line. We expect more color ad
migration in the next issue.
There is a discrepancy in what we thought would be charged for color ads
that the committee would like to clear up with the printer:
Is the $280 charge for color pages for 1 bulletin page (8 1/2 x 11), 1 side of
a printed page (11 x 17) or both sides of a printed page (11 x 17 X 2)?
Kerryn's email indicated that we were billed $1,680 for the color art work, 4
ads plus 2 pictures @ $280 each. At the last Pubs Committee meeting the
cost was placed at $280 for 2 sides of a printed page (11 x 17 X 2). Four (4)
printed page sides (11 x 17) have color art. What should the bill be for what?
Graham will check into this.
PDF Version of the CIB
Kerryn was able to have a PDF version of the Fall 2001 CIB, but it was one
large file. The committee would like to provide a complete PDF version of
each CIB, including ads and cover page, to the Archivist. We would need to
know the cost the printer would charge? Perhaps the individual articles
should be separate PDF files.
There should be 2 editions of the PDF version, one with ads, and the other
without. The advertisements would be important for archival purposes. 20
years from now, someone may want to know what products were on the
market. The PDF version would have to be uploaded.
Subscription Manager
This person needs to collect money from non-member subscribers who
are libraries. Such copies were essentially given out for free for at least a
few years. Approximately $700 in revenue has been lost.
Barbara Hurwitz volunteered to be Subscription Manager and will try to
collect money for 2000-1 non-member subscribers.
Graham suggested using CHMINF-L to try to solicit more non-member
subscriptions. New subscribers will contact Barbara who will give Kerryn
the information so that he can send them the magazine.
The mailing charges is now $40 for foreign and $30 for domestic
subscriptions. The Executive Committee already approved these rates.
Salary Survey
The 2001 salary survey is essentially complete. Carol Carr and Grace
Baysinger would like to proofread a paper version of the salary, before it is
released. We should give mid fall 2001 as a publication date.
The survey has already cost $1500 that must be
recouped. Patricia Kirkwood e-mailed Bruce saying that 8 copies were
already sold and that she expects to sell 40 copies. We felt that 50 copies
of the survey should be printed. The costs of the survey were published in
the Fall 2001 CIB. When Patricia receives the money, she turns it over to
Marge Matthews, the Treasurer.
We questioned whether the salary survey should be a membership
benefit. If so, how should the cost be recouped? Bill Town suggested that
after a certain date, the survey should be put on the web and be available
for members for free.
Patricia said that after December 31, 2001, she would leave the
Publications Committee. Who will send out the surveys and collect the
money after that date?
The Committee suggested that the Executive Board approve the front page
of the survey. A letter should be sent to Patricia and her supervisor
commending her for fine work done on the survey.
CINF E-News
Bruce asked that contributions be sent to him by September 15th with an
expected publication date of October 1.
COUNCILOR'S REPORT
Report from the Council of the American Chemical Society held August 29,
2001 - submitted by Bonnie Lawlor
FUTURE MEETINGS OF INTEREST TO CINF MEMBERS
SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CHEMICAL
STRUCTURES - submitted by Guenter Grethe
The sixth in the series of these very successful triennial conferences will be
held from June 2 -6, 2002, at the beautiful Congress Center in
Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The conference is jointly organized by
the Division of Chemical Information of the American Chemical Society
(ACS), the Chemical Structure Association (CSA), the Division of Chemical
Information and Computer Sciences of the Chemical Society of Japan
(CSJ), the Chemistry-Information-Computer Division of the Society of
German Chemists (GDCh), the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society
(KNCV), the Chemical Information Group, Royal Society of Chemistry,
(RSC), and the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS).
As in preceding conferences, the most recent methodologies, applications
and products in the area of chemical information will be discussed in
plenary sessions, posters and during an exhibition. Topics will include
molecular representation, combinatorial chemistry and molecular diversity,
web-based technologies and electronic publishing, molecular similarity,
molecular modeling, chemical synthesis, and selected topics from the field
of bioinformatics. Reduced registration fees and a small number of
bursaries are available to encourage students to attend this important
conference and to present their research.
Attendees will have sufficient free time to interact with their colleagues, to
enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the Center, and to take advantage of the
vicinity of Amsterdam.
In the age of electronic communication we will not send out hardcopy
announcements. A Call for Papers and more details about the
conference will be published soon on the homepage of the Division of
Chemical Information, American Chemical Society, and other websites
during the next few months. These announcements will also be published
on relevant listservers. Submitted papers will be evaluated by a Scientific
Review Committee that includes Professsor Kimito Funatsu, Professor
Johann Gasteiger, Dr. Gerald Maggiora, and Professor Peter Willett.
For more information contact:
Guenter Grethe
Conference Chairman
c/o MDL Information Systems, Inc.
14600 Catalina Street
San Leandro, CA 94577
510-895-1313, ext.1430 (voice)
510-614-3638 (fax)
guenter@mdli.com
TRISOCIETY SYMPOSIUM - submitted by Marilyn Dunnker
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 7th quadrennial Trisociety Symposium* will be held Sunday, June 9,
2002 during the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference in Los
Angeles.
The theme for the symposium will be:
Electronic Chemistry Collections: Dealing with Chemistry Resources in
Electronic Formats
Topics include:
Migration of chemistry references sources and journals from print to
electronic; Digital library operations; Electronic resources -- presentation
and instruction; Structure searching of WWW databases; User
perception and acceptance of electronic resources Transitioning from
print to digital library; References Service issues; Archival issues related
to electronic materials -- years, decades or centuries. Researchers are
invited to submit proposals for a paper to be presented at the Trisociety
Symposium. Submit a 200-400 word abstract which includes the papers
topic and scope by January 15,2002. Presenters will be notified by March 1,
2002
if their paper has been selected.
Abstracts, e-mail preferred, should be sent to :
Marilynn Dunker
The Procter & Gamble Company
6300 Center Hill Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45224
dunker.mj@pg.com
*The Trisociety Symposium is a joint venture of the American Chemical
Society Division of Chemical Information, Chemistry Division of the Special
Libraries Association and the American Society for Information Science and
Technology Special Interest Group on Scientific and Technical Information
Systems. Its aim is to advance co-operation among the chemical
information professionals of the three participating societies by holding a
joint one day symposium on a topic of mutual interest every four years. This
will be the seventh symposium.
SECOND CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORY AND HERITAGE
OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS submitted by Josh McIlvain
Call for papers for the Second Conference on the History and Heritage of
Scientific and Technical Information Systems due October 31, 2001
The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the American Society for
Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) are pleased to announce
the Second Conference on the History and Heritage of Scientific and
Technical Information Systems, to be held November 5-17, 2002, at the
Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, immediately prior to the
annual meeting
of ASIS&T.
Scholars from a range of disciplines, including library and information
science, communications and history of science and technology, are
encouraged to submit abstracts of 500-1000 words based on the themes
listed on the website. Abstracts are due by October 31, 2001. Authors are
requested to submit a full paper following evaluation of its abstract, must
have at least a completed draft available by 30 June 2002. Emphasis for
this conference will be on the period from the Second World War up
through the early 1990s, including the infrastructure created by digitization,
the Internet, and the World Wide Web. Conference organizers are looking
for in-depth historical analyses of these developments and how they have
affected the practice of science both nationally and internationally.
Contact:
HHSTIS2 Program Committee
Chemical Heritage Foundation
315 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
mailto:%20HHSTIS2@chemheritage.org
For more information on the conference and suggested topics, please visit:
http://www.chemheritage.org/HistoricalServices/2002HHSTIS2.htm
or go to http://www.chemheritage.org/ and click on "What's New"
CHICAGO NATIONAL ACS MEETING
Abstracts of papers with links to selected presentation materials in PDF
format
A selection of photos from the CINF Welcoming Reception,
technical session and Herman Skolnik Award presentation are available on
the CINF Website. Point your browser to:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cinf/222nm/photos.html
BOLTON SOCIETY SYMPOSIUM
submitted by Elizabeth Swan
On August 28th we enjoyed a successful half-day Bolton Society
symposium entitled Notable Antiquarian Chemistry Book Collectors and
Their Public Collections. Twenty-seven attendees listened to six
presentations on this specialized subject, as a part of the Division of the
History of Chemistry (HIST) programming at the ACS National Meeting in
Chicago, IL:
Kathleen L. Neeley
Frank Burnett Dains and his History of Chemistry
Collection at the University of Kansas.
James (Jim) J. Bohning
Eckley Brinton Coxe.
David L. Adams
Chemistry, Coal, and Culture: The Library of
Charles Anthony Goessman Book Collection.
Harold (Hal) H. Harris
Ethan Allen Hitchcock Alchemy Collection in the
Mercantile Library, University of Missouri - St. Louis.
David G. Hendricker
Collection.
Mary Ellen Bowden
Messages.
Ohio University's Gem: The J. W. Morgan
Edgar Fahs Smith: Old Chemistries and their
Each of the six speakers focused on the history of the collector and the
criteria of their particular collecting interests, as well as the circumstances
surrounding the collection's deposit. Attendees especially enjoyed the
slides showing highlights from each book collection described, and pored
over volumes that were brought to the Symposium by the presenters.
Founded in October 1999 the Bolton Society, an organization of chemical
bibliophiles, exists "to encourage and promote the individual love for and
collection of all types of published materials and unpublished material that
illuminate and elucidate the history and development of the chemical and
molecular sciences and their associated technologies." The society also
seeks to "advance the cause of the Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer
Library of the Chemical Heritage Foundation."
Currently, the Bolton Society has a membership of forty-two, and is
international in scope. Our members reflect a considerable diversity of
geographic location, professional background, and collecting interests. We
have representatives from two other continents; one member from South
Africa, and two European members, one from Northern Ireland, and one
from
Italy.
The majority of members describe their collection as "small" or "modest",
while eleven members list their collection as comprising more than 1,000
volumes or items, with the largest book collection being over 10,000. The
range of members' interests is extremely broad, although individual
collections can be very narrowly focused. Collections cover more than
books
and journals, as several members are stamp collectors, and a few members
also collect instruments, manuscript materials or other formats such as
stock certificates, prints, or ephemera. Some of the more specific areas of
interest include alchemy, folk medicine, forensic chemistry, microscopy, and
polio. While some collectors specialize in historical periods, others have
focused upon the works of notable individuals, such as Boyle, Black, Dalton,
and Kirwan.
For further information about the Bolton Society, please contact:
Elizabeth Swan
Secretary, Bolton Society
Director, Othmer Library
Chemical Heritage Foundation
315 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia PA 19106
Tel: 215-873-8226
Fax: 215-925-1954
http://www.chemheritage.org/
4th NATIONAL CHEMICAL INFORMATION SYMPOSIUM (NCIS)
Submitted by Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Report from the 4th National Chemical Information Symposium
CHEMISTRY SITE SEEING
Submitted by Herbert Benz
http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/herbert_benz/
Organic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry)
(Internet Resources in
This is a very personal collection of sites which are either useful for my own
work or which I visited on several occasions in the past. Unfortunately, the
update will not be available before this autumn.Hopefully, some of the
described sites will nevertheless be of interest to you.
Submitted by Steven Rosenthal
How Stuff Works
Marshall Brain has created a wonderful site, jam-packed with explanations
on how things work. The breadth of material is extraordinary. I think that
librarians and teachers would find the material here highly useful in
answering questions. The site is searchable and is updated daily with a
variety of information. The material is presented simply and is easy to
read and understand. This site has been featured in the New York Times
and Newsweek's Surf Report (July 23, 2001).
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Electronic learning technology
Quia is an e-learning technology company and recognized leader in
interactive content delivery. The site contains samples of games that can
be used in the chemistry classroom. Examples of some games include:
matching element symbols and names
http://www.quia.com/
The international mass spectrometry web resource
The NetWatch section of the July 6, 2001 issue of Science magazine
describes i-mass.com as the dedicated mass spectrometry site offering
"news briefsgleaned from technical and popular publications, tip-offs to
valuable journal articles, links to labs, and the all-important jobs list"...
http://i-mass.com/
Organic Chemistry Resources Worldwide
An intuitive WWW resource guide for synthetic organic chemists
This web directory of essential links for synthetic organic chemists is
organized in six parts: the literature, the bench, structural analysis, the desk,
communication, and additional activities. It was cited in the NetWatch
section of the May 11, 2001 issue of Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/).
http://www.organicworldwide.net/
Submitted by Trudi Jones
The website for the International Patent Information (IPI) Award which has
now been updated, including many
photographs
http://www.patentinformationaward.com/
CINF PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Svetlana Korolev left Wayne State University and accepted a new
employment as a science librarian with the Golda Meir Library, University of
Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Carmen Nitsche has joined the Business Development group at MDL
Information Systems as a Senior Business Planning Specialist. She is also
taking on the role of MDL Academic Liaison. Her responsibilities include
organizing the
next Toxicology Information Roundtable, scheduled for May 1-3, 2002. She
is working out of her home office in San Antonio, Texas and can be reached
via email atcnitsche@mdli.com.
Cynthia O Donohue has joined Arena Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, CA,
as Chemistry Patent Manager in the Legal Department. At Arena
Pharmaceuticals Cynthia will be responsible for assessing intellectual
property issues, chemical patent searching, preparation and
prosecution. Previously she was employed at Allergan, Inc. in Irvine
CA. Arena is a biopharmaceutical company founded in 1997 to pursue
CART (CART = Constitutively Activated Receptor Technology) Technology
for receptor-based drug discovery. Over 130 independent patent
applications have been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark
Office with some of these patent applications being filed worldwide.
A few months ago Peter Nielsen left his position as a Vice-President at
Ashgate Publishing Company to become Director of Marketing and
Business Development at Daylight Chemical Information Systems, Inc. He
is now working to repackage Daylight and its products to more effectively
communicate what Daylight has to offer the chemical information
community. By the time of the next e-news he will have completed the first
phase of renovation on the Daylight web site. This will reveal and
communicate Daylight's clearer identity.
(Editors note - this next report is republished from a posting to CHMINF-L
by Eugene Garfield)
Tony Kent Strix Award for 2001
The Tony Kent Strix Award for 2001 has been awarded to Professor Peter
Willett of the Department of Information Studies, Sheffield University.
The citation for this year's award reads:
"Professor Willett is one of the best known people working in information
Retrieval today. He has been the author or editor of 14 books in the field, as
well as more than 300 other publications. He is equally active in teaching
and administration. His interests within Information Retrieval are extremely
wide-ranging, so that there is almost no area of research which he has not
at some time investigated. Particularly noteworthy has been his work on
document clustering, linguistic analysis, term extraction and indexing, and
basic algorithm design for retrieval processes.
His outstanding contribution however has been in Chemoinformatics, in
which subject he stands, perhaps, as the world leader. His PhD work in the
mid-seventies was in this field, and he has devoted the past quarter century
to its study. His work combines theoretical achievement with practical utility.
The chemical and pharmaceutical industries have benefited through his
collaboration with them, and these are industries that bring benefits to us all.
His teaching in Chemoinformatics has been noteworthy. Over 40 research
students have gained higher degrees under his supervision, and he
has recently established at Sheffield an MSc in Chemoinformatics, the first
such course of its kind.
Peter's name is indissolubly connected with Sheffield University, where he
has been since 1976. The rise of its Department of Information Studies to
become the leading centre for IR studies in England is in great measure
due to his continued presence there."
The Award was presented at the Institute of Information Scientists AGM
and Members' day at the Brunei Gallery, School of African and Oriental
Studies, Russell Square, London, on Thursday, September 20th, by last
year's recipient, Dr. Martin Porter.
Enquiries to Doug Veal at doug@dovertonltd.freeserve.co.uk
PRESS RELEASES
CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS SERVICE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 14, 2001
CAS LAUNCHES FREE WEB SERVICE CONNECTING SCIENTISTS TO
HIGH INTEREST RESEARCH IN CHEMISTRY
SCIENCE SPOTLIGHT(SM) Delivers View of Most Highly Cited and
Requested Chemistry Documents
Columbus, Ohio, August 14, 2001 - A new web service from Chemical
Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society,
reveals the most highly cited and requested chemistry-related research
publications as reflected by the
citations included in the CAS databases and the full-text documents
requested by scientists through the ChemPort
Connection. CAS Science Spotlight will provide not only lists of highly cited
and requested documents, but also the bibliographic and abstract
information along with the full text, where available, all free of charge.
o Most Cited Journal Articles, Journals and Patent Families in CAS
databases 1999-2000
CAS Science Spotlight lists the documents most cited, for the last two
publication years, in the patents, conference
proceedings, Web preprints or one of the 8,000 journals covered by CAS,
producer of the world's largest collection of scientific information.
o Most Requested Documents of the Quarter
CAS Science Spotlight identifies the scientific papers and chemistry-related
patents for which researchers have most
frequently requested the full text via the CAS ChemPort Connection,
available through STN, SciFinder and SciFinder
Scholar. In its initial release Spotlight lists the Most Requested documents
for a five-week period during the most recent
quarter. Future updates will be offered quarterly.
CAS began adding citations to its CAplus database in 1999. Science
Spotlight provides a unique report on citation activity
in chemistry research by:
o listing the most frequently cited patent families
o providing summaries of concepts and substances covered in the
document
o presenting links to the electronic full text of the document or a pdf copy
when electronic full text is not available.
"In 1999, CAS began adding citations to our bibliographic database at a
rate of nearly 20 million per year," said CAS
Director, Robert J. Massie. "This growing collection of citations is valuable
in itself, but even more so in terms of
their links within the CAS databases, the world's most valuable compendia
of indexed and edited chemical and related
information. Science Spotlight is a first step in analyzing this collection and
deriving insights into the direction and focus of
scientific research today. We thank our colleagues in primary publishing for
their cooperation in launching Spotlight, and look
forward to working with them and individual researchers to evolve this
program in the years to come."
The following publishers, authors and distributors have provided free fulltext documents in Science Spotlight: ACS Publications:
Academic Press/IDEAL; American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS); American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology (ASBMB); MicroPatent; National Research Council of
Canada; Oxford University Press; The National Academy of Sciences of
the U. S.; Dr. Fredrick Sanger, Cambridge, England; Dr. Harry Towbin,
Basel, Switzerland.
CAS Science Spotlight can be found on the web
at http://www.cas.org/spotlight/ or through a link from the CAS home
page.
Eric Shively
CAS
eshively@cas.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26, 2001
CAS WILL ENRICH DATABASES WITH CALCULATED PROPERTIES
AND REACTIONS BACK TO 1975
STN, SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar Will Give Researchers More
Powerful Content for Scientific Discovery
Columbus, OH, August 26, 2001 - Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) is
extending the reach and content of its databases, already recognized as the
world's most comprehensive for chemistry-related research and substance
information.
Researchers seeking candidate substances for new drugs will benefit
especially from CAS' addition of calculated property data
from Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc. (ACD) and another ten years
of reaction information back to 1975 provided by InfoChem GmbH in the
CASREACT file. These additions are planned for Fall 2001 and will be
accessible through STN services, SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar. CAS
made these announcements during the ACS National Meeting in Chicago
this week.
"Our new enhancements will dramatically enrich the content and value of
CAS databases for pharmaceutical research and many other avenues of
exploration," said CAS Editorial Operations Director, Matthew J.
Toussant. "The property data created using ACD software and CAS
substance connection tables, along with the InfoChem/ZIC reactions added
to CASREACT, open new possibilities for an entire range of substance
investigation. In sum, scientists can find more answers to a broader range
of
questions."
CAS is strengthening its offering in two complementary areas of substance
information, accessible to users of CAS databases
through SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar or STN search services:
o CAS is adding eight calculated property values to several million
substance records in the CAS Registry: number of hydrogen
donors, number of hydrogen acceptors, number of rotatable bonds,
molecular weight, logD, logP, pKa, and solubility in water.
These calculated properties are provided using CAS substance connection
tables and software developed by ACD and will enable researchers to
quickly and easily focus on the more "drug-like" molecules identified in the
Registry file. The same types of property data will gradually be supplied for
a wider set of substances in Registry.
o The CASREACT file will be extended back to 1975, with the addition of
more than 750,000 single- and multi-step reactions
from the German software company, InfoChem. For this collection of
reactions, jointly built by the All-Union Institute of
Scientific and Technical Information of the Academy of Sciences of the
USSR (VINITI) and the German Zentrale
Informationsverarbeitung Chemie, Berlin (ZIC), CAS Registry Numbers will
be assigned to reaction participants and each
reaction will be linked to its corresponding CAplus document record. These
reactions from journal and patent literature will
be seamlessly integrated with those previously existing in CASREACT,
giving chemists insights in the synthetic information
reported during the past quarter of a century.
Advanced Chemistry Development Inc. (http://www.acdlabs.com/) is the
leader in the field of integrated solutions for physical
property prediction, desktop chromatography and spectroscopy
management, systematic naming, and Web-based access to chemistry
prediction. Founded in 1993 and with headquarters in Toronto, Canada,
the company currently employs over 100 people and has established
worldwide distribution channels. ACD's mission is to define a new standard
in capability for chemistry-based software, addressing the needs of
spectroscopy, chromatography, physical property prediction, and chemical
naming.
InfoChem GmbH
InfoChem GmbH (http://www.infochem.de/), founded in 1989, is a software
company focusing on the production and commercial marketing of structural
and reaction databases for organic and pharmaceutical chemistry and the
development of software tools required for these applications. InfoChem's
largest data file currently contains 4 million structures and 3 million
reactions covering the chemical literature published between 1975-1995. It
was jointly built by the VINITI Institute (Moscow) and the ZIC Institute in
Berlin. In particular, the conversion of these files into commercially usable
products has been one of
InfoChem's major achievements. InfoChem's "Reaction Classification
Algorithm" developed in this context is one of the
most powerful tools available for structuring large reaction databases and
linking different databases. InfoChem is based in
Munich, Germany, with a subsidiary in Berlin. Springer-Verlag (Heidelberg)
has held a majority interest in InfoChem GmbH since 1991.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 26, 2001
SCIFINDER 2001 GIVES RESEARCHERS NEW TOOLS FOR
EXPLORING BIOTECHNOLOGY, DRUG DISCOVERY AND MORE
New Capabilities for Sequence Identification, Expanded Chemical
Substance Information and Improved Current Awareness Head the List of
SciFinder Innovations
Columbus, OH, August 26, 2001 - In its new SciFinder 2001 release, the
award-winning SciFinder desktop research tool breaks new ground for the
exploration of multidisciplinary scientific information. Researchers in
biotechnology can explore literature in their subject area more easily using
the BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) algorithm, incorporated
into SciFinder.At the same time, SciFinder 2001 introduces additional
substance information and a variety of new and improved features for
drug discovery and keeping scientists up to date with newly published
information specific to their interests. The new features, planned for
October, were announced by CAS during the American Chemical Society
national meeting held this week in Chicago.
With the addition of BLAST capability, SciFinder will enable scientists to
explore publicly disclosed DNA or protein
sequences. Using this new feature in tandem with multidisciplinary
databases from CAS and MEDLINE, researchers can
move directly from identifying a sequence similar to a queried sequence to
viewing associated published research and patents.
"SciFinder is now becoming an even stronger, more versatile tool for
exploring chemical and biological information published
around the world," said CAS Marketing Director, Suzan A. Brown. "Our new
BLAST Explore will be a welcome addition, but we are also making
substantial extensions to database content. This includes adding
calculated properties, another 10 years of
reaction information, and citation searching, which, along with the other
innovations, will help researchers remain in the
vanguard of the biomedical and chemical revolution."
In addition to BLAST searching SciFinder 2001 will introduce a variety of
features for more effective exploration of research
information:
o The popular Keep Me Posted capability, which alerts SciFinder users to
the latest reported research on the topics they define, will permit users to
specify chemical structures of interest;
o Reaction information back to 1975 will be added for more than 750,000
single- and multi-step reactions, through an agreement with the German
software company, InfoChem GmbH. CAS Registry Numbers will be
assigned to reaction participants and each reaction will be linked to its
corresponding CAplus document record;
o For over 3 million substance records in the CAS Registry, CAS is adding
eight calculated property values: number of hydrogen donors, number of
hydrogen acceptors, number of rotatable bonds, molecular weight, logD,
logP, pKa, and solubility in water. These calculated properties are provided
through software developed by ACD and will enable researchers to quickly
and easily focus on the more "drug-like" molecules identified in SciFinder
structure explores;
o Citation searching will be available in SciFinder; for a document or set of
documents identified through SciFinder,
researchers will be able to view either the references cited in those
documents (cited documents) or identify the sources that
cite the documents in the answer set (citing documents);
o In cooperation with Spotfire, Inc., CAS will couple SciFinder's advanced
chemical substance Explore capabilities with Spotfire DecisionSite's
interactive visualization and information analysis tools, giving customers of
both services new avenues for
drug discovery.
SciFinder was created in 1995 with the vision of providing scientists easy,
point-and-click access to chemical information.
The new intelligent research tool -- a client-server product for the desktop -was an immediate hit with scientists, assisting
them and other researchers worldwide with access to the multidisciplinary
CAS databases. Today, tens of thousands of
scientists at pharmaceutical, biotech, and chemical companies around the
world use SciFinder regularly to explore research
topics, browse scientific journals and stay up-to-date on recent scientific
developments.
FIZ CHEMIE
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin and consortium lead by the University of Marburg agree
to new co-operation:
Project "Network for Chemistry Education" to cooperate with University
Consortium
Berlin/Marburg, August 2001
The "Chemistry Information Centre", FIZ
CHEMIE Berlin, and its partners in the project "Vernetztes
Studium?Chemie" (VS-C), will make recently developed software available
to a university consortium for the construction of a novel, Internet-supported
college curriculum in organic and biochemistry.
The VS-C project (Network for Chemistry Education) is a major R+D
initiative funded by the Federal German Ministry of Education and Research
("Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung", BMBF) to the tune of 41
million Deutschmarks over a 5-year period. Project Co-ordinator on behalf
of the BMBF is FIZ CHEMIE Berlin. "It is becoming increasingly difficult to
manage the vast amounts of information to be digested with traditional
methods of learning" states Dr. René Deplanque, Scientific Managing
Director of FIZ CHEMIE Berlin. "This flood of new information requires new
methods of learning and teaching and this is just what the VS-C project is
all about." Individual, knowledge-based "learn modules" which will deal with
the chemistry involved within a particular theme are being developed which
will combine course material with tutorials, exercises and the interactive,
multimedial simulation of experiments and chemical processes. By the end
of the project in 2004, these modules will be networked via the Internet to
form a revolutionary new digital education system for chemistry.
It is the software and know-how required in order to build such a module
that is now the subject of the co-operation between VS-C and the new
university consortium. Lead by the University of Marburg (Professor
Thomas Carell) the consortium also includes the Universities of Bonn, Kiel,
Leipzig, the Technical University of Munich and the Humboldt University in
Berlin.
"New, multimedia-based teaching and learning forms are absolutely
necessary in today's scientific world" says Carell. "Modern course material
must be understandable, continually updated, exciting and efficient to learn
if we are going to attract and motivate young people to chose a career in
science". Within the framework of a 2.4 million-Deutschmark, 2.5-year
BMBF project "Internet Support of Education in Organic Chemistry
bordering on the Biosciences", the consortium will use the VS-C software
as the basis for the construction of multimedial modules in English and
German describing processes in organic and biochemistry, including
bioinformatics. In this way, not only will German education in organic
chemistry be restructured and modernised, but also internationally more
competitive. As with the other VS-C products, the finished modules will
also be available from FIZ CHEMIE Berlin.
For additional information please contact:
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin
Franklinstrasse 11 P.O. Box 12 03 37 Internet: www.chemistry.de
D-10587 Berlin D-10593 Berlin E-mail: info@fiz-chemie.de
Germany Germany
Contact person: For the press:
Dr. R. Deplanque Tel.: (+49 30) 399 77-200 Dr. A. R. Flambard Tel.: (+49
30) 399 77-140
Telefax: (+49 30) 399 77-133 Telefax: (+49 30) 399 77-132
E-mail: deplanque@fiz-chemie.de E-mail: http://wwwsul.stanford.edu/depts/swain/cinf/enews/arf@fiz-chemie.de
University of Marburg
Faculty of Chemistry
Hans-Meerwein-Strasse P.O. Box Internet: http://www.uni-marburg.de
D-35043 Marburg D-35032 Marburg
Contact person:
Prof. Dr. T. Carell Tel.: (+49 6421) 282 1535
Telefax: (+49 6421) 282 2189
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin's "ChemGuide" search engine available via CAS's
eScience service:
"ChemGuide" Search Engine Accessible from eScience Web site
Berlin/Columbus/Chicago, 27th August 2001
Germany's "Chemistry
Information Centre" (FIZ CHEMIE Berlin) and the Chemical Abstracts
Service (CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society), are pleased to
announce the signing of an agreement which will allow scientists using
CAS's eScience® service to link to FIZ CHEMIE Berlin's "ChemGuide"
Internet search engine.
The eScience service was recently introduced at the 221st ACS National
Meeting in San Diego in April and enables scientists to enlist the sources of
the Web to augment the results of searching in CAS information
products. It already offers two popular search engines Google; which
scours the entire Web for topics of interest, and ChemIndustry, a
specialised search engine focusing on the chemical industry. By adding a
link to FIZ CHEMIE's well-known ChemGuide search engine, eScience
users now have access to one of the Web's most powerful chemistry
resources with the opportunity to search over 3 million tried and tested
chemistry-related URLs. And this number is growing daily.
For additional information please contact:
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin
Franklinstrasse 11 P.O. Box 12 03 37 Internet: www.chemistry.de
D-10587 Berlin D-10593 Berlin E-mail:mailto:info@fiz-chemie.de
Germany Germany
Contact person: For the press:
Dr. R. Deplanque Tel.: (+49 30) 399 77-200 Dr. A. R. Flambard Tel.: (+49
30) 399 77-140
Telefax: (+49 30) 399 77-133 Telefax: (+49 30) 399 77-132
E-mail: deplanque@fiz-chemie.de E-mail:mailto:arf@fiz-chemie.de
Chemical Abstracts Service
2540 Olentangy River Road Internet: www.cas.org
P.O. Box 3012 http://www.escience.org/
Columbus, OH 43210-0012 Email: mailto:help@cas.orgor intsales@cas.org
U.S.A. mailto:intsales@cas.org
Contact person:
Eric Shively Tel.: (614) 447 3847
Telefax: (614) 447 3837
E-mail: eshively@cas.org
CHEMWEB - submitted by Jenny Drey
August 27th 2001. ChemWeb, Inc. launches a new identity for
ChemWeb.com at the American Chemical Society Fall National Meeting,
August 26-31 in Chicago, USA, alongside major new products and services.
Members now benefit
from a user-friendly interface, enabling them to access the ever increasing
range of chemical information on the site, and expanding member services,
with even greater ease. Personalisation has also been added to the home
page
to ensure members receive information relevant to their profiles.
The first year of the ChemWeb.com Chemistry Preprint Server (CPS) has
been hailed as an international success in the world of chemistry research.
Since the CPS was launched in August 2000, it has attracted hundreds of
articles from all over the world, all of which are available to ChemWeb.com
members for browsing, review and discussion.
The National Library of Medicine's (NLM) MEDLINE® (MEDlars onLINE), is
now live on ChemWeb.com in a new, intuitive and user-friendly version,
entirely free of charge. MEDLINE® is the world's most heavily used
bibliographic
database in biomedical research including related areas of chemistry. The
database has been redesigned by ChemWeb.com to include far richer and
more user-friendly functionality. Additionally, the new Search History feature
nables users to save their searches as they go along, and re-run or refine
them at a later date.
The winner of the alchemist's 2001 International Young Chemistry Writer of
the Year Award is Michael Nagle, of Oxford University, UK. His article, Cure
Cancer at Home, centres around a screensaver project, the largest
computational project ever undertaken, which aims to find new anti-cancer
drugs using donated computer idle time. Cure Cancer at Home is published
in the alchemist, ChemWeb.com's online magazine
[http://alchemist.chemweb.com/].
ChemWeb.com has teamed up with several major publishers to bring the
following information free of charge to the members of ChemWeb.com until
October 1, 2001:
Elsevier Science journals:Tetrahedron Letters, FEBS Letter, Biochemica &
Biophysica Acta Series, Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A:
Chemistry, Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology,
Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, Sensors and Actuators
A: Physical, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical
ACD/Labs NMR & Physical Chemistry Databases Chapman & Hall/CRC
Press databases Combined Chemical Dictionary and Properties of Organic
Compounds Brethericks' Reactive Chemical Hazards Database
The ChemWeb.Computational Chemistry Toolkit is now live. This is a free
resource to enable ChemWeb.com members to carry out semi-empirical
computational chemistry calculations. The Toolkit is a fully-functioning
application providing a graphical user interface to run semi-empirical
calculations within the well-known GAMESS (General Atomic and Molecular
Electronic Structure System) chemical program, developed and maintained
by Professor Mark Gordon's group at Iowa State
University.
Bill Town, Director of Operations at ChemWeb Inc, said, " Now that
ChemWeb.com has attracted such a large membership, it is fitting that we
should re-invest in the site and "give something back" to our members, and
this is reflected in the new system and our string of new products and
services. We will strive to continue to make improvements and innovations,
which can only help the progress of science."
Contact : Jenny Drey, Press Officer, ChemWeb, Inc., Tel/Fax: +44 (0)20
7622
9301, Email: jenny.drey@ChemWeb.com
CambridgeSoft - submitted by Cheryl Hacker
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Bruce R. Gelin TEL: 617 588-9123
CambridgeSoft Corporation FAX: 617 588-9190
E-mail: bgelin@cambridgesoft.com URL: http://www.cambridgesoft.com/
The Merck Index for ChemOffice
CambridgeSoft to Produce Electronic Fully Searchable New 13th Edition
Chicago, IL - August 28, 2001 - CambridgeSoft has been selected by Merck
& Co., Inc., the publisher of The Merck Index, to produce a fully searchable
electronic version of the soon to be published 13th Edition. The new
electronic format will be available on both CambridgeSoft s ChemOffice
desktop software and ChemOffice WebServer enterprise software.
The Merck Index
Chemistry s Constant Companion
is a onevolume encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs, and biologicals. It contains more
than 10,000 monographs on single substances or small groups of related
compounds, with information about chemical, generic, and brand names;
registry numbers; physical data and literature references; structures and
stereochemistry; toxicity; and therapeutic uses.
Among printed chemical references, The Merck Index stands out for its
integrity, detail, and longevity. Moving its extensive information content to
ChemOffice electronic format makes it easier and faster to get results.
Queries for the electronic edition can include names, partial names,
structures, partial structures (substructures), molecular weights and
formulas, and other characteristics, singly or in combination. Complete
monographs are displayed for hits
substances matching the query.
The electronic version of The Merck Index will be available for desktop
users and for enterprise systems. On the desktop, the database will be
completely integrated for use with CambridgeSoft s ChemOffice suite,
consisting of ChemDraw, ChemFinder, and Chem3D. Structures and
information retrieved from The Merck Index are available for use with all of
these programs. In the enterprise version, The Merck Index will be served
by the ChemOffice WebServer, CambridgeSoft s development and
deployment platform for enterprise, corporate intranet and extranet scientific
information applications.
Merck & Co., Inc. is a leading, research-driven pharmaceutical products
and services company. Merck discovers, develops, manufactures and
markets a broad range of innovative products to improve human and animal
health, directly and through its joint ventures. Merck-Medco manages
pharmacy benefits for employees, insurers and other plan sponsors,
encouraging the appropriate use of medicines and providing disease
management programs. Through these complementary capabilities, Merck
works to improve the quality of life and contain overall health care costs.
CambridgeSoft develops and markets life science enterprise solutions for
biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical industrial and academic
research organizations. Software products include desktop to enterprise
versions of ChemOffice, including ChemDraw, with knowledge
management, research and discovery, and e-commerce applications. Web
sites include ChemFinder.Com and ChemNews.Com for indexed database
content and news, and ChemStore.Com for e-commerce. For information
about CambridgeSoft products, services, and resellers worldwide,
visit http://www.cambridgesoft.com/, or call 800 315-7300 or 617 588-9100.
ChemOffice, ChemDraw, ChemFinder.Com, and ChemStore.Com are
trademarks of CambridgeSoft.
Organic Syntheses Goes Electronic
Organic Syntheses, one of the major resources for preparation of important
organic molecules and the illustration of novel synthetic methods, has
joined the age of electronic publication with the release of its website,
www.orgsyn.org. This site is available free of charge to all chemists and
contains all of the nine Collective as well as Annual Volumes and Indices.
Organic Syntheses (OS) was founded by Roger Adams during a time of
rapid growth in the study of organic chemistry in the US and of world-wide
economic and political turmoil that interfered with free exchange of scientific
information. Since the 1920s, volumes of OS consisting of synthetic
procedures have been published annually by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The
first six Collective Volumes were published every ten years, and the last
three at five-year intervals.
Each preparation published in OS is peer-reviewed for correctness and
reproducibility, making it unique in the organic chemical literature, and
contains detailed information on starting materials, equipment, reaction and
purification procedures, and safety precautions. In recent volumes, editors
have attempted to standardize the style of experimental procedures and the
presentation of spectroscopic data. Increasing emphasis on the toxicology
of organic compounds has led to the inclusion of additional hazard warnings.
To create the Organic Syntheses web site, the Board of Directors of OS
formed a collaboration with CambridgeSoft Corporation (Cambridge, MA),
producers of ChemOffice and ChemDraw, and DataTrace Publishing
Company (Towson, MD), publishers of ChemTracts. OS fully funded this
extensive effort. All of the information in the OS Collective Volumes, Annual
Volumes and Indices were digitized, mapped and converted to XML
documents by DataTrace. CambridgeSoft developed the website
incorporating the databases linking text and chemical structures using their
proprietary ChemOffice Webserver software. Reaction diagrams are stored
in a ChemFinder database to facilitate structure-based searching.
The OS website goes far beyond the scope of the printed version and is
fully searchable using a variety of techniques. Using the free ChemDraw
plugin for Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, chemists can
draw structural queries directly on the web page, and combine structural or
reaction transformation queries with full-text and bibliographic search terms,
such as chemical name, reagents, molecular formula, apparatus, reagents,
or even a hazard or warning phrase. The preparations are categorized into
nearly 300 specific reaction types allowing search by category.
Organic Syntheses, Inc. is an institution chartered to support scientific,
educational, and charitable endeavors to support the organic chemistry
community. OS decided to fully fund and develop this project as part of this
charter to further organic chemical education.