Volume 6 Number 1
Fall 2004
Edited by Bruce Slutsky
Submitted by Bruce Slutsky
The aim of the CINF E-News
is to keep the membership aware of division activities at the recent national
meeting. Perhaps only 10% of the membership attended the
Philadelphia convention. Since people at the meeting couldn’t
attend all the technical sessions and social events, this electronic newsletter
attempts to fill the information gap. I have attempted to
amass the Powerpoint files that were presented. I’d like to
thank the presenters who are willing to share their talks with the entire CINF
membership.
CINF Sponsors
In 2004 the Division of Chemical Information again was fortunate to receive generous financial support from our sponsors to maintain the high quality of the Division's programming at the National ACS Meeting in Anaheim, to promote communication between members at Welcoming Receptions and to support other divisional activities.
The Division gratefully acknowledges contribution from the following sponsors:
| Platinum Level |
Chemical Abstracts Service MDL Information Systems, Inc. Thomson Scientific |
|---|---|
| Gold
Level |
Wiley
Interscience |
| Silver Level | FIZ CHEMIE
Berlin |
| Bronze Level | Accelrys ACS Publications Division GlaxoSmithKline LIONbioscience LHASA Limited Rusch Consulting Group |
| Contributors | SimBioSys Leadscope Inc. |
Reports from the
Philadelphia Meeting
Unapproved Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting
Submitted by Svetlana Korelev
Unapproved Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting
Submitted by Svetlana Korelev
The draft minutes from the Executive Committee
Meeting held August 21, 2004 in Philadelphia has been posted at the Publication
page of the CINF web site. Some reports from the Executive Committee members
are published in the present CINF E-News. The following are selected
news:
1. Introductions
The incoming CINF Functionaries:
Election results
The question was raised whether the 2004 election results could be accepted because of the member complaints on listing only one candidate for each position on the ballot. (Note: the unusual situation happened because of one candidate withdrawing at the last minute). The committee voted to accept the 2004 election results, as there was no demand for re-election and the Executive Committee felt that we had the very best candidates.
Action item: To avoid having only one candidate for an office in the future, the Nominating Committee Chair will include more people on the committee so that a larger pool of candidates can be confirmed and placed on the ballot.
2. Division Business
Regional Meetings (Osman Güner)
In 2004 CINF is participating in three Regional Meetings in Programs at:
1. CRM [Central Regional Meeting, Indianapolis, IN] - Gary Wiggins,
2. NERM [Northeast Regional Meeting, Rochester, NY] - Susan Cardinal,
3. SWRM [Southwest Regional Meeting, Fort Worth, TX] - Dr. Rita
Wilby, $500 sponsorship will be given for a lecture and travel;
Also, the Education committee will be conducting a Workshop at:
4. SERMACS [Southeastern Regional Meeting, of the Two-Year College Chemistry Committee, Research Triangle Park, NC].
In 2005 CINF will be contributing to one Regional Meeting in Programs at:
MARM (Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, New Brunswick, NJ) - David Martinsen.
Communications (Pamela Scott)
The 'Yahoo!' discussion group for CINF Functionaries was established in May 2004. The communication functions of the CINF web site need to be expanded: each Committee should be able to manage its web pages. The problem is that 'Microsoft Front Page' must be used to edit the site, while many people at academia use 'Dreamweaver.'
Action item: Pamela will set up a conference call with Alan, Andrea, Kerryn and Leah to discuss the management of committee web pages.
3. Committee and Officer Reports
Audit (Joanne Witiak)
The 2004 report is available at the Committee web site.
Awards (Bill Town)
A revision of The Herman Skolnik Award criteria was proposed. The revised criteria will be sent via the CINF Yahoo group for review and vote of the Executive Committee. It was also proposed and accepted that nominations for the Herman Skolnik Award be valid for three years automatically without re-submission.
The nominations for the 2005 Meritorious Service Award are being sought, and are due March 1, 2005.
BTEC [Biotechnology Secretariat http://acs-btec.org/] (Guenter Grethe)
The division is contributing on 'Genomics and proteomics' theme at the present ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. It will not be participating for the next two years due to the lack of relevancy in programming.
Careers (Phil Barnett)
Starting 2004 the Careers symposium will be held every third National meeting instead of every fall to alternate presentations to the East and West coast audiences. In the past ACS has been having their spring meetings in the west and the fall meetings in the east. In 2006 they are reversing the locations of the two national meetings, meaning we may have to change our schedule to accommodate our goal of alternating east and west locations.
Education (Leah Solla)
A symposium on 'Intellectual property' is planned for a National Meeting in Washington, DC. It may be possible to expand the program format beyond symposia, i.e. a panel discussion. Next year, a more practical base workshop is planned for the Spring National Meeting in San Diego.
Membership (Alan Engel)
LABA: a proposal to adopt the Division of Laboratory Automation membership was sent to ACS in May. The proposal included three points in support:
Action item: A welcome letter, highlighting the CINF mission, opportunities in programming and future plans, will be sent to the LABA membership.
Program (Osman Güner)
Ninety-eight papers in twelve-and-a-half day symposia will be presented at the present National Meeting in Philadelphia. For contributing to a presidential initiative on 'graduate education' poster session CINF received $700 (plus $350 left from the previous contribution), which was used for twelve (a record!) registrations of invited speakers.
In 2004 the division participated in BCCE: Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (Bartow and Erja). Next year - in Pacifichem 2005, and in the International Conference on Chemical Structures organized at Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands (Guenter). For the following two ACS National Meetings in San Diego and Washington, DC eighteen-and-a-half sessions are being finalized.
Publications (Bruce Slutsky)
CINF E-News: after debating on the purpose of the CINF E-News as a 'member benefit' versus a 'publicity organ' (without a log-in and password), it was decided that the CINF E-News should remain a 'member benefit' aiming as an online continuation of the CIB with the highlights after a National meeting. Alan and Bruce formed a sub-committee to examine whether the second electronic publication could be launched for outreach to non-division members. This item will be revisited at the next meeting.
4. New business
Collaboration between CINF & CIC (a guest presentation)
Dr. René Deplanque, Managing Director of FIZ CHEMIE Berlin, spoke on a project 'Network in Chemistry Education' aiming to encourage collaboration between related organizations worldwide. In particular, the collaboration for information exchange between CINF and CIC (a division of 'Computer Information in Chemistry' of the German Chemical Society) would be established through these efforts. One of the outcomes, for example, could be developing an educational tutorial on 'Chemical Information Resources' for e - learning, available both in English and German.
Action item: An organizational workshop between CINF and CIC is planned for the next ACS National meeting in San Diego. Bartow, Andrea, Grace and Guenter agreed to participate in it. Guenter and Rene will organize.
1. Introductions
The incoming CINF Functionaries:
 | Osman Güner, Chair Elect 2005,
| Patricia Kirkwood, Treasurer 2005-06,
| Terry Wright, Program Chair 2005-06,
| Erja Kajosalo, Program Assistant Chair 2005-06,
| Guenter Grethe, Awards Chair 2006-08. | |
Election results
The question was raised whether the 2004 election results could be accepted because of the member complaints on listing only one candidate for each position on the ballot. (Note: the unusual situation happened because of one candidate withdrawing at the last minute). The committee voted to accept the 2004 election results, as there was no demand for re-election and the Executive Committee felt that we had the very best candidates.
Action item: To avoid having only one candidate for an office in the future, the Nominating Committee Chair will include more people on the committee so that a larger pool of candidates can be confirmed and placed on the ballot.
2. Division Business
Regional Meetings (Osman Güner)
In 2004 CINF is participating in three Regional Meetings in Programs at:
1. CRM [Central Regional Meeting, Indianapolis, IN] - Gary Wiggins,
2. NERM [Northeast Regional Meeting, Rochester, NY] - Susan Cardinal,
3. SWRM [Southwest Regional Meeting, Fort Worth, TX] - Dr. Rita
Wilby, $500 sponsorship will be given for a lecture and travel;
Also, the Education committee will be conducting a Workshop at:
4. SERMACS [Southeastern Regional Meeting, of the Two-Year College Chemistry Committee, Research Triangle Park, NC].
In 2005 CINF will be contributing to one Regional Meeting in Programs at:
MARM (Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, New Brunswick, NJ) - David Martinsen.
Communications (Pamela Scott)
The 'Yahoo!' discussion group for CINF Functionaries was established in May 2004. The communication functions of the CINF web site need to be expanded: each Committee should be able to manage its web pages. The problem is that 'Microsoft Front Page' must be used to edit the site, while many people at academia use 'Dreamweaver.'
Action item: Pamela will set up a conference call with Alan, Andrea, Kerryn and Leah to discuss the management of committee web pages.
3. Committee and Officer Reports
Audit (Joanne Witiak)
The 2004 report is available at the Committee web site.
Awards (Bill Town)
A revision of The Herman Skolnik Award criteria was proposed. The revised criteria will be sent via the CINF Yahoo group for review and vote of the Executive Committee. It was also proposed and accepted that nominations for the Herman Skolnik Award be valid for three years automatically without re-submission.
The nominations for the 2005 Meritorious Service Award are being sought, and are due March 1, 2005.
BTEC [Biotechnology Secretariat http://acs-btec.org/] (Guenter Grethe)
The division is contributing on 'Genomics and proteomics' theme at the present ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. It will not be participating for the next two years due to the lack of relevancy in programming.
Careers (Phil Barnett)
Starting 2004 the Careers symposium will be held every third National meeting instead of every fall to alternate presentations to the East and West coast audiences. In the past ACS has been having their spring meetings in the west and the fall meetings in the east. In 2006 they are reversing the locations of the two national meetings, meaning we may have to change our schedule to accommodate our goal of alternating east and west locations.
Education (Leah Solla)
A symposium on 'Intellectual property' is planned for a National Meeting in Washington, DC. It may be possible to expand the program format beyond symposia, i.e. a panel discussion. Next year, a more practical base workshop is planned for the Spring National Meeting in San Diego.
Membership (Alan Engel)
LABA: a proposal to adopt the Division of Laboratory Automation membership was sent to ACS in May. The proposal included three points in support:
| The mission statements of both divisions are similar. CINF is revising its
mission statement to be more inclusive;
| CINF programming strongly supports the inclusiveness toward LABA topics;
| CINF will encourage the LABA membership to become involved in all aspects
of the division, including the corresponding committees. | |
Action item: A welcome letter, highlighting the CINF mission, opportunities in programming and future plans, will be sent to the LABA membership.
Program (Osman Güner)
Ninety-eight papers in twelve-and-a-half day symposia will be presented at the present National Meeting in Philadelphia. For contributing to a presidential initiative on 'graduate education' poster session CINF received $700 (plus $350 left from the previous contribution), which was used for twelve (a record!) registrations of invited speakers.
In 2004 the division participated in BCCE: Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (Bartow and Erja). Next year - in Pacifichem 2005, and in the International Conference on Chemical Structures organized at Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands (Guenter). For the following two ACS National Meetings in San Diego and Washington, DC eighteen-and-a-half sessions are being finalized.
Publications (Bruce Slutsky)
CINF E-News: after debating on the purpose of the CINF E-News as a 'member benefit' versus a 'publicity organ' (without a log-in and password), it was decided that the CINF E-News should remain a 'member benefit' aiming as an online continuation of the CIB with the highlights after a National meeting. Alan and Bruce formed a sub-committee to examine whether the second electronic publication could be launched for outreach to non-division members. This item will be revisited at the next meeting.
4. New business
Collaboration between CINF & CIC (a guest presentation)
Dr. René Deplanque, Managing Director of FIZ CHEMIE Berlin, spoke on a project 'Network in Chemistry Education' aiming to encourage collaboration between related organizations worldwide. In particular, the collaboration for information exchange between CINF and CIC (a division of 'Computer Information in Chemistry' of the German Chemical Society) would be established through these efforts. One of the outcomes, for example, could be developing an educational tutorial on 'Chemical Information Resources' for e - learning, available both in English and German.
Action item: An organizational workshop between CINF and CIC is planned for the next ACS National meeting in San Diego. Bartow, Andrea, Grace and Guenter agreed to participate in it. Guenter and Rene will organize.
Abstracts of the
technical sessions from the Philadelphia meeting may be found at http://www.acscinf.org/cinf/meetings/228nm/228cinfabstracts.htm There are links to many of the Powerpoint
files that were shown.
Presentations given at CINF
symposia have been posted to the CINF website with
express permission granted by the authors who retain the original
copyright. These presentations are for information purposes only
and cannot be further disseminated without the author's prior written
permission.
The Editor thanks the speakers
at the Philadelphia meeting who sent me their Powerpoint files to share their
information with CINF members who could not
attend.
Lorrin Garson wins The 2005 Herman Skolnik
Award
The last seven years have seen
a tremendous effort on the part of publishers to develop and enhance
electronic editions of their print publications. The impact of this migration
has been particularly significant within the international scientific community.
The American Chemical Society has been one of the leaders in this area. While
this migration to the Internet was prompted by the development of http and
html, the work of the preceding twenty years positioned the industry to take
rapid and widespread advantage of those developments.
Lorrin Garson has been at the forefront of electronic production and delivery of journal articles for nearly 30 years. He was trained as an organic chemist, earning a BA from the University of California, Riverside, and MS and PhD from the University of Maine. In the early 1960s he worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a medicinal chemist. He was on the faculty of the University of Tennessee from 1967 to 1974 in the College of Pharmacy, and joined the staff of the American Chemical Society in the Publications Division in 1974 as a Senior Research Associate in the Research & Development Department. In 1984 he became the Head of the Advanced Technology Department, in 1995 Chief Technology Officer for the Publications Division, in 1998 Director, Information Technology/Publications and in 2002 Chief Research Scientist. Garson retired from the ACS in January, 2004.
Upon joining the ACS, Garson developed one of the first electronic manuscript tracking and peer review systems for scientific journals. Through several upgrades, this system continues to server the Society's peer review needs in tracking and reviewing nearly 40,000 manuscripts annually.
After an experiment in printing a "custom" journal, selecting journal articles on the basis of subject, and binding them into a custom publication (somewhat akin to the "virtual" journals available online today), Garson turned his attention to full-text journals online. An initial experiment with a limited number of journals on the BRS System was followed by the release of ACS Journals Online, launched on STN in 1986, consisting of full text of all of the ACS journals from 1986 forward. This system generated no small amount of controversy. The information community was not convinced that full-text searching was a reliable alternative to abstract/keyword searching provided by the A&I vendors. In addition, the technology present at the time meant that full text was just that - text. No equations or graphics were present. Despite these deficiencies, cooperative arrangements were made with several other publishers, and eventually the Chemical Journals Online, expanded to include titles from the Royal Society of Chemistry, Wiley, Elsevier, and VCH. This system continued in operation through the mid-1990's. It was during this time that ACS began to convert its journal collection into SGML. Although hampered by a lack of easy-to-use software tools, Garson's group at the ACS worked with other publishers to define standard tag sets for scientific publications, and began to put those tag sets into use. This SGML infrastructure proved to be quite useful when CD-ROM technology began to mature. It was relatively easy to turn the ACS Journals Online into a CD-ROM product, with three titles appearing in 1994/1995 and continuing through 1996. The product consisted of a text view, with links to equations and figures, and links from the document text to citation text; and a page view, consisting of full-page tiff images. While moderately successful, the product was cumbersome because of the number of discs required per year, and the hardware setup for libraries to support multiple titles and multiple publishers. All of this set the stage for migrating to the Web. The first three ACS titles were loaded in 1996, and the remaining titles were loaded in 1997. The last year has seen the entire ACS archives loaded onto the Web.
During this period, Dr. Garson was involved in a number of industry/academic collaborations, including the CORE project, Red Sage, and DOI, to name just a few. The Web has certainly changed the way all of us acquire and publish information, in both our personal and professional lives. There have been contributions of a great many people. However, Dr. Garson's leadership within the ACS, and within the industry, has been significant in the online environment within the scientific community, and for this reason we have decided to give Lorrin Garson The 2005 Herman Skolnik Award.
Lorrin Garson has been at the forefront of electronic production and delivery of journal articles for nearly 30 years. He was trained as an organic chemist, earning a BA from the University of California, Riverside, and MS and PhD from the University of Maine. In the early 1960s he worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a medicinal chemist. He was on the faculty of the University of Tennessee from 1967 to 1974 in the College of Pharmacy, and joined the staff of the American Chemical Society in the Publications Division in 1974 as a Senior Research Associate in the Research & Development Department. In 1984 he became the Head of the Advanced Technology Department, in 1995 Chief Technology Officer for the Publications Division, in 1998 Director, Information Technology/Publications and in 2002 Chief Research Scientist. Garson retired from the ACS in January, 2004.
Upon joining the ACS, Garson developed one of the first electronic manuscript tracking and peer review systems for scientific journals. Through several upgrades, this system continues to server the Society's peer review needs in tracking and reviewing nearly 40,000 manuscripts annually.
After an experiment in printing a "custom" journal, selecting journal articles on the basis of subject, and binding them into a custom publication (somewhat akin to the "virtual" journals available online today), Garson turned his attention to full-text journals online. An initial experiment with a limited number of journals on the BRS System was followed by the release of ACS Journals Online, launched on STN in 1986, consisting of full text of all of the ACS journals from 1986 forward. This system generated no small amount of controversy. The information community was not convinced that full-text searching was a reliable alternative to abstract/keyword searching provided by the A&I vendors. In addition, the technology present at the time meant that full text was just that - text. No equations or graphics were present. Despite these deficiencies, cooperative arrangements were made with several other publishers, and eventually the Chemical Journals Online, expanded to include titles from the Royal Society of Chemistry, Wiley, Elsevier, and VCH. This system continued in operation through the mid-1990's. It was during this time that ACS began to convert its journal collection into SGML. Although hampered by a lack of easy-to-use software tools, Garson's group at the ACS worked with other publishers to define standard tag sets for scientific publications, and began to put those tag sets into use. This SGML infrastructure proved to be quite useful when CD-ROM technology began to mature. It was relatively easy to turn the ACS Journals Online into a CD-ROM product, with three titles appearing in 1994/1995 and continuing through 1996. The product consisted of a text view, with links to equations and figures, and links from the document text to citation text; and a page view, consisting of full-page tiff images. While moderately successful, the product was cumbersome because of the number of discs required per year, and the hardware setup for libraries to support multiple titles and multiple publishers. All of this set the stage for migrating to the Web. The first three ACS titles were loaded in 1996, and the remaining titles were loaded in 1997. The last year has seen the entire ACS archives loaded onto the Web.
During this period, Dr. Garson was involved in a number of industry/academic collaborations, including the CORE project, Red Sage, and DOI, to name just a few. The Web has certainly changed the way all of us acquire and publish information, in both our personal and professional lives. There have been contributions of a great many people. However, Dr. Garson's leadership within the ACS, and within the industry, has been significant in the online environment within the scientific community, and for this reason we have decided to give Lorrin Garson The 2005 Herman Skolnik Award.
Photographs from the Philadelphia Meeting
Peter Johnson receives the 2004 Herman Skolnik Award
from CINF Division Chair Pamela Scott
Pamela presents the MeritoriousService
Award to Grace Baysinger
Guenter Grethe also received the
Meritorious Service Award
The Council of the American Chemical Society (ACS) met on August 25, 2004 in the Wyndham Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The meeting lasted a full four hours and included discussion and votes as described below. The highlights of the session follow the contents summary.
Officer's Reports
ACS President Casey Focuses on Education
Charles C. Casey, current ACS President, tested his new initiative entitled the Academic Employment Initiative (AEI). The first AEI poster session was held as part of SCI-Mix. Over 120 candidates seeking faculty positions presented research posters.
ACS President-Elect Carroll details his agenda
William F. Carroll, ACS President-Elect, spoke of his agenda for 2005:
Details can be found on president-elect Carroll's
web page: http://www.billcarroll.org/
ACS Past President Reichmanis focuses on young chemists and interdisciplinary teamwork
Elsa Reichmanis encouraged the ACS to work to develop science competitions that focus on group rather than individual achievements. She also referenced the ACS Nov. 2001 report on "Communicating the benefits of a career in chemistry to the millennial generation" by Wirthlin: http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/resources?id=1195dfa8e6b211d6e5c06ed9fe800100
ACS Board approves policy statement on L-1 visas and recommends on awards
James Burke, Chair of the ACS Board of Directors, reported that the Board approved a policy statement at their June meeting, recommending legislation that discourages the use of the L-1 visa program to outsource jobs (See June 21, 2004 issue of C&E News).
The Board voted to recommend a nominee for both the 2005 Perkin Medal and the Othmer Gold Medal. The Perkin Medal is awarded for outstanding contributions to the applied chemistry industry. The Othmer Gold Medal recognizes a chemical scientist of multiple talents and achievements and is awarded by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
The Board also approved financial support for the James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching for 2006. The Board agreed that the award addresses for the Award for Volunteer Service to the Society will be presented at annual ChemLuminary Award Ceremonies.
ACS Executive Director Jacobs reports finances are sound
Madeleine Jacobs reported that ACS finances are sound and that administrative expenses are being reduced. The Belmont conference center is being sold for ~ $5.2M. The membership committee is conducting a comprehensive survey of membership satisfaction, the first in more than a decade. Dr. Paul Anastas has joined the ACS staff as director of the Green Chemistry Institute. Dr. Anastas is considered one of the fathers of green chemistry.
Governing Board for Publishing reports on Chemical Abstracts Service and Publications divisions of the ACS
CAS will achieve above budget revenues. More than 800 institutions world-wide have installed SciFinder Scholar.
Publications will meet its 2004 financial objectives despite the weakness in the advertising market. The percentage price increase for 2005 institutional subscriptions will be substantially less than it has been for the last few years. Prices for member online subscriptions will not be increased for 2005.
Candidate Statement Guidelines: President-Elect and Board of Directors
The Council discussed a recent decision by the Committee on Nominations to reduce the allowable length for candidate statements (President-Elect and Board of Directors) from 1000 words to 750. A resolution was defeated at Council that would have allowed candidate statements to be 1000 words or more.
Proposal for an Ethics Committee
The Committee on Committees presented to Council a proposal for establishing an Ethics Committee as an Other Committee of the Council. The charge of this committee would be as follows: To coordinate the ethics-related activities of the Society; serve as an educational resource and clearinghouse, but not as an adjudicatory body, for ACS members seeking guidance on ethics issues; raise awareness of ethics issues through meeting programming and columns/editorials; review recognition opportunities for acknowledging ethical behavior; and develop and oversee such other ethics-related activities as will serve ACS members and promote the Society's standards of ethical conduct within the profession of chemistry and its related disciplines. The Council voted to refer the recommendation back to the Committee on Committees for further study.
Registration Report, 2005 Advance Registration Fee, and Future Locations of National Meetings
As of August 24, 2004, the ACS fall national meeting had attracted 13,805 registrants as follows: Regular attendees 7,741; Students 2,919; Guests 482; Exhibit only 734; and Exhibitors 1,929. The 2005 advance registration fee was announced as $295. The Council approved 2014 meeting sites as follows: Washington, D.C. (March 16-20) and San Francisco (August 24-28). The Committee on Meetings and Expositions will be requesting that the Board of Directors agree to switch the New York 2010 meeting with the Boston 2012 site due to projected construction on the New York Convention Center.
Membership Statistics
The Council was informed that as of June 30, 2004, total ACS membership stood at 154,945. Compared to last year, this represents less than a 1% decrease in the overall membership number. The good news is that the very impressive 50% increase in the recent graduates joining the Society experienced at year-end last year is continuing. At the end of June, more than 6,800 new members had been added to the membership rolls, which aligns well with the number at the same time last year.
Approval of Petitions
The Council voted to accept three amendments to the ACS Constitution and/or Bylaws (Petitions): Petition for Electronic Balloting, Petition to Change Division Annual Report Deadline, and Petition for Membership Requirements for Teachers. The Petition for Electronic Balloting proposed changes to the Society's Constitution and Bylaws allowing for the option of electronic balloting. The first Society implementation will be internet-based, similar to those currently used by several divisions, sister societies, and other organizations, such as public corporations polling their shareholders prior to annual meetings. The Petition to Change Division Annual Report Deadlines makes the annual report deadline consistent with that of Local Sections. This allows the Council Committee on Divisional Activities more time to evaluate Division Annual Reports for making selections for the ChemLuminary Awards program. The Petition for Membership Requirements for Teachers allows experienced qualified chemistry teachers, who may not otherwise fully meet the requirements, to become members based on their status and experience. The petition also allows a pre-college chemistry or allied science teacher to become an associate member.
Special Discussion Item
A special discussion item was put on the Council agenda for this meeting. ACS President Charles Casey and Board Chair James Burke lead the Council in a discussion on the multidisciplinarity/dispersion of chemistry as a discipline and its impact on ACS members and the profession. Questions were raised about the way the federal government identifies jobs held by chemists as one of many indicators of how multidisciplinarity has come to affect the status of chemists. The Board of Directors and the ACS President have established a joint Board-Council task force to assess the challenges and opportunities that multidisciplinarity presents to the ACS and chemical scientists in general. The discussion at Council revealed an interest in this topic, particularly as it applies to the future of the discipline.
Local Section Actions
On the recommendation of the Local Section Activities Committee, the Council approved a name change for the Peoria Local Section to the Illinois Heartland Local Section. The Council also approved the inclusion of four additional counties to the Wichita Falls - Duncan Local Section.
Approval of the ACS Professional Employment Guidelines
On the recommendation of the Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs, the Council voted to approve the seventh edition of the ACS Professional Employment Guidelines. These guidelines offer a variety of recommended practices in employment for professional scientists and their employers in today's workplace.
Elected Members to the Committee on Committees
Ten candidates were presented and five were elected by written ballot. Those elected were:
Lawrence Barton
Lissa Dulany
Larry K. Krannich
Mary Virginia Orna
Eleanor D. Siebert
Elected Members to the Council Policy Committee
Eight candidates were presented and four were elected by written ballot. Those elected were:
Rita R. Boggs
Dean W. Cooke
Yorke E. Rhodes
Peter J. Stang
Elected Members to the Committee on Nominations and Elections
Fourteen candidates were presented and seven were elected by written ballot. Those elected were:
Frank D. Blum
Michael P. Doyle
Carol A. Duane (CINF member)
Merle I. Eiss (CINF member)
Ruth Ann Hathaway
Kathleen M. Schulz
Ellen B. Stechel
Candidates for President-Elect and Board of Directors
The Council was informed of the candidates for the fall 2004 ACS national election as follows:
President-Elect 2005
E. Ann Nalley, Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma
F. Sherwood Rowland, University of California, Irvine, California
Isiah M. Warner, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Director-at-Large, 2005-2007
David F. Eaton, Light Insights, LLC, Wilmington, Delaware
Judith C. Giordan, Visions in Education, Inc., Pleasanton, California
Howard M. Peters, Peters, Verny, Jones & Schmitt, LLP, Palo Alto, California
David N. Rahni, Pace University, Pleasantville, New York
Director, District II, 2005-2007
Thomas H. Lane, Dow Corning Corporation, Midland, Michigan
Diane G. Schmidt, Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, Ohio
Director, District IV, 2005-2007
Eric D. Bigham, GlaxoSmithKline, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Paul R. Jones, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Robert L. Lichter, Merrimack Consultants, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia
John L. Massingill, Jr., Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas
CINF 2004 Salary Survey Preliminary Results
submitted by Sue Cardinal and Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Peter Johnson receives the 2004 Herman Skolnik Award
from CINF Division Chair Pamela Scott
Pamela presents the MeritoriousService
Award to Grace Baysinger
Guenter Grethe also received the
Meritorious Service Award
Report from the August 25, 2004 ACS Fall Council
Meeting
submitted by JoAnne Witiak and Bonnie Lawlor
submitted by JoAnne Witiak and Bonnie Lawlor
The Council of the American Chemical Society (ACS) met on August 25, 2004 in the Wyndham Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The meeting lasted a full four hours and included discussion and votes as described below. The highlights of the session follow the contents summary.
Officer's Reports
ACS President Casey Focuses on Education
Charles C. Casey, current ACS President, tested his new initiative entitled the Academic Employment Initiative (AEI). The first AEI poster session was held as part of SCI-Mix. Over 120 candidates seeking faculty positions presented research posters.
ACS President-Elect Carroll details his agenda
William F. Carroll, ACS President-Elect, spoke of his agenda for 2005:
| Outreach: service and the public's perception of chemistry
| Education: chemistry teaching as a second career
| The state of the chemistry enterprise, 2015 (looking 10 years into
the future). | |
ACS Past President Reichmanis focuses on young chemists and interdisciplinary teamwork
Elsa Reichmanis encouraged the ACS to work to develop science competitions that focus on group rather than individual achievements. She also referenced the ACS Nov. 2001 report on "Communicating the benefits of a career in chemistry to the millennial generation" by Wirthlin: http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/resources?id=1195dfa8e6b211d6e5c06ed9fe800100
ACS Board approves policy statement on L-1 visas and recommends on awards
James Burke, Chair of the ACS Board of Directors, reported that the Board approved a policy statement at their June meeting, recommending legislation that discourages the use of the L-1 visa program to outsource jobs (See June 21, 2004 issue of C&E News).
The Board voted to recommend a nominee for both the 2005 Perkin Medal and the Othmer Gold Medal. The Perkin Medal is awarded for outstanding contributions to the applied chemistry industry. The Othmer Gold Medal recognizes a chemical scientist of multiple talents and achievements and is awarded by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
The Board also approved financial support for the James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching for 2006. The Board agreed that the award addresses for the Award for Volunteer Service to the Society will be presented at annual ChemLuminary Award Ceremonies.
ACS Executive Director Jacobs reports finances are sound
Madeleine Jacobs reported that ACS finances are sound and that administrative expenses are being reduced. The Belmont conference center is being sold for ~ $5.2M. The membership committee is conducting a comprehensive survey of membership satisfaction, the first in more than a decade. Dr. Paul Anastas has joined the ACS staff as director of the Green Chemistry Institute. Dr. Anastas is considered one of the fathers of green chemistry.
Governing Board for Publishing reports on Chemical Abstracts Service and Publications divisions of the ACS
CAS will achieve above budget revenues. More than 800 institutions world-wide have installed SciFinder Scholar.
Publications will meet its 2004 financial objectives despite the weakness in the advertising market. The percentage price increase for 2005 institutional subscriptions will be substantially less than it has been for the last few years. Prices for member online subscriptions will not be increased for 2005.
Committee
Reports and Actions
Candidate Statement Guidelines: President-Elect and Board of Directors
The Council discussed a recent decision by the Committee on Nominations to reduce the allowable length for candidate statements (President-Elect and Board of Directors) from 1000 words to 750. A resolution was defeated at Council that would have allowed candidate statements to be 1000 words or more.
Proposal for an Ethics Committee
The Committee on Committees presented to Council a proposal for establishing an Ethics Committee as an Other Committee of the Council. The charge of this committee would be as follows: To coordinate the ethics-related activities of the Society; serve as an educational resource and clearinghouse, but not as an adjudicatory body, for ACS members seeking guidance on ethics issues; raise awareness of ethics issues through meeting programming and columns/editorials; review recognition opportunities for acknowledging ethical behavior; and develop and oversee such other ethics-related activities as will serve ACS members and promote the Society's standards of ethical conduct within the profession of chemistry and its related disciplines. The Council voted to refer the recommendation back to the Committee on Committees for further study.
Registration Report, 2005 Advance Registration Fee, and Future Locations of National Meetings
As of August 24, 2004, the ACS fall national meeting had attracted 13,805 registrants as follows: Regular attendees 7,741; Students 2,919; Guests 482; Exhibit only 734; and Exhibitors 1,929. The 2005 advance registration fee was announced as $295. The Council approved 2014 meeting sites as follows: Washington, D.C. (March 16-20) and San Francisco (August 24-28). The Committee on Meetings and Expositions will be requesting that the Board of Directors agree to switch the New York 2010 meeting with the Boston 2012 site due to projected construction on the New York Convention Center.
Membership Statistics
The Council was informed that as of June 30, 2004, total ACS membership stood at 154,945. Compared to last year, this represents less than a 1% decrease in the overall membership number. The good news is that the very impressive 50% increase in the recent graduates joining the Society experienced at year-end last year is continuing. At the end of June, more than 6,800 new members had been added to the membership rolls, which aligns well with the number at the same time last year.
Approval of Petitions
The Council voted to accept three amendments to the ACS Constitution and/or Bylaws (Petitions): Petition for Electronic Balloting, Petition to Change Division Annual Report Deadline, and Petition for Membership Requirements for Teachers. The Petition for Electronic Balloting proposed changes to the Society's Constitution and Bylaws allowing for the option of electronic balloting. The first Society implementation will be internet-based, similar to those currently used by several divisions, sister societies, and other organizations, such as public corporations polling their shareholders prior to annual meetings. The Petition to Change Division Annual Report Deadlines makes the annual report deadline consistent with that of Local Sections. This allows the Council Committee on Divisional Activities more time to evaluate Division Annual Reports for making selections for the ChemLuminary Awards program. The Petition for Membership Requirements for Teachers allows experienced qualified chemistry teachers, who may not otherwise fully meet the requirements, to become members based on their status and experience. The petition also allows a pre-college chemistry or allied science teacher to become an associate member.
Special Discussion Item
A special discussion item was put on the Council agenda for this meeting. ACS President Charles Casey and Board Chair James Burke lead the Council in a discussion on the multidisciplinarity/dispersion of chemistry as a discipline and its impact on ACS members and the profession. Questions were raised about the way the federal government identifies jobs held by chemists as one of many indicators of how multidisciplinarity has come to affect the status of chemists. The Board of Directors and the ACS President have established a joint Board-Council task force to assess the challenges and opportunities that multidisciplinarity presents to the ACS and chemical scientists in general. The discussion at Council revealed an interest in this topic, particularly as it applies to the future of the discipline.
Local Section Actions
On the recommendation of the Local Section Activities Committee, the Council approved a name change for the Peoria Local Section to the Illinois Heartland Local Section. The Council also approved the inclusion of four additional counties to the Wichita Falls - Duncan Local Section.
Approval of the ACS Professional Employment Guidelines
On the recommendation of the Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs, the Council voted to approve the seventh edition of the ACS Professional Employment Guidelines. These guidelines offer a variety of recommended practices in employment for professional scientists and their employers in today's workplace.
Elections
Elected Members to the Committee on Committees
Ten candidates were presented and five were elected by written ballot. Those elected were:
Lawrence Barton
Lissa Dulany
Larry K. Krannich
Mary Virginia Orna
Eleanor D. Siebert
Elected Members to the Council Policy Committee
Eight candidates were presented and four were elected by written ballot. Those elected were:
Rita R. Boggs
Dean W. Cooke
Yorke E. Rhodes
Peter J. Stang
Elected Members to the Committee on Nominations and Elections
Fourteen candidates were presented and seven were elected by written ballot. Those elected were:
Frank D. Blum
Michael P. Doyle
Carol A. Duane (CINF member)
Merle I. Eiss (CINF member)
Ruth Ann Hathaway
Kathleen M. Schulz
Ellen B. Stechel
Candidates for President-Elect and Board of Directors
The Council was informed of the candidates for the fall 2004 ACS national election as follows:
President-Elect 2005
E. Ann Nalley, Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma
F. Sherwood Rowland, University of California, Irvine, California
Isiah M. Warner, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Director-at-Large, 2005-2007
David F. Eaton, Light Insights, LLC, Wilmington, Delaware
Judith C. Giordan, Visions in Education, Inc., Pleasanton, California
Howard M. Peters, Peters, Verny, Jones & Schmitt, LLP, Palo Alto, California
David N. Rahni, Pace University, Pleasantville, New York
Director, District II, 2005-2007
Thomas H. Lane, Dow Corning Corporation, Midland, Michigan
Diane G. Schmidt, Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, Ohio
Director, District IV, 2005-2007
Eric D. Bigham, GlaxoSmithKline, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Paul R. Jones, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Robert L. Lichter, Merrimack Consultants, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia
John L. Massingill, Jr., Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas
CINF 2004 Salary Survey Preliminary Results
submitted by Sue Cardinal and Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Thank you to the 367 people that participated in
the CINF 2004 Salary Survey, the fourth survey for CINF! Your efforts have
led to a statistically valid tool that can be used during salary discussions and
career planning by chemical information professionals.
Over the summer, the salary survey data collection took place completely electronically using an online survey hosted by Associate Research, Institute (ARI). Participants received an invitation via email with a link to the survey. Emails were sent to all CINF members and members of the Chminf-L and PIUG listservs.
According to the survey results, 90 % of respondents were employed full time, 3.7 % were employed part time and the balance were unemployed, retired or students. At the time of the survey, 0.9% of the participants were seeking employment.
Sixty percent of respondents classified themselves as working in commercial or industrial positions, mostly in research and development or manufacturing. 21% worked in the academic sector, mostly for doctorate degree granting institutions, 10 % in the not-for-profit sector and 4 % worked for the government.
Fifty percent of respondents worked for their employers for 5 years or less. However, 48.4% had been in the profession for 9 years or less.
The average base salary for chemical information professionals as of January 1, 2004 was ~$80,500. This is an 24% increase over the average base income of $65,000 reported in 2000 in CINF's third survey. Research and Development jobs provided the highest base incomes ranging from $85,000 - $130,000. The area of database management/ production proved to be very lucrative, with annual base salaries ranging from $80,000 - $138,000 Patent searchers fell in the middle, with annual base salaries ranging from $62,000-$95,000. Lowest base incomes, ranging from $41,000 - $63,000 were earned by reference or informational service workers.
We are planning to post the complete CINF 2004 Salary Survey with analysis to the member's only area of our website. In addition, we will have an article about the Salary Survey in the Spring Chemical Information Bulletin (CIB). Non-members may purchase the survey upon completion in Spring 2005.
Thanks again for helping create this valuable membership tool.
If you have questions about this project, please contact:
Andrea Twiss-Brooks at atbrooks@uchicago.edu or (773) 702-8777 or
Sue Cardinal at http://www.acscinf.org/cinf/publications/e-news/0601/mailtoLscardinal@library.rochester.edu or (585) 275-9007
Product
AnnouncementsOver the summer, the salary survey data collection took place completely electronically using an online survey hosted by Associate Research, Institute (ARI). Participants received an invitation via email with a link to the survey. Emails were sent to all CINF members and members of the Chminf-L and PIUG listservs.
According to the survey results, 90 % of respondents were employed full time, 3.7 % were employed part time and the balance were unemployed, retired or students. At the time of the survey, 0.9% of the participants were seeking employment.
Sixty percent of respondents classified themselves as working in commercial or industrial positions, mostly in research and development or manufacturing. 21% worked in the academic sector, mostly for doctorate degree granting institutions, 10 % in the not-for-profit sector and 4 % worked for the government.
Fifty percent of respondents worked for their employers for 5 years or less. However, 48.4% had been in the profession for 9 years or less.
The average base salary for chemical information professionals as of January 1, 2004 was ~$80,500. This is an 24% increase over the average base income of $65,000 reported in 2000 in CINF's third survey. Research and Development jobs provided the highest base incomes ranging from $85,000 - $130,000. The area of database management/ production proved to be very lucrative, with annual base salaries ranging from $80,000 - $138,000 Patent searchers fell in the middle, with annual base salaries ranging from $62,000-$95,000. Lowest base incomes, ranging from $41,000 - $63,000 were earned by reference or informational service workers.
We are planning to post the complete CINF 2004 Salary Survey with analysis to the member's only area of our website. In addition, we will have an article about the Salary Survey in the Spring Chemical Information Bulletin (CIB). Non-members may purchase the survey upon completion in Spring 2005.
Thanks again for helping create this valuable membership tool.
If you have questions about this project, please contact:
Andrea Twiss-Brooks at atbrooks@uchicago.edu or (773) 702-8777 or
Sue Cardinal at http://www.acscinf.org/cinf/publications/e-news/0601/mailtoLscardinal@library.rochester.edu or (585) 275-9007
Chemical Abstracts Service
submitted by Eric Shively
CAS HIRES VICE
PRESIDENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Brian Bergner to lead CAS'
Information Technology Initiative
COLUMBUS,
OH, August 16, 2004 - Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) has appointed Brian
Bergner vice president, information technology. His principal
responsibilities include maintaining and developing the technical infrastructure
to support CAS' extensive worldwide database
building and distribution
operations.
"We are delighted to have attracted Brian Bergner to CAS and
Columbus," said Bob Massie, president of CAS. "He has an extraordinary
track
record of technology leadership in the pharmaceutical industry, one of
our principal customer sectors. Brian brings the skills and experience
that
will help CAS move to the next level of information delivery and
analysis."
Prior to joining CAS, Bergner was director, information
technology, for BASF Corporation and was responsible for all technology
infrastructure
in North and South America. Bergner also is the former
vice president of global infrastructure and site services at Pharmacia
Corporation,
where he was responsible for the overall strategy, direction,
planning and execution of global infrastructure technology. Other
significant
past positions include serving as the vice president, global
infrastructure for Merck and Company, vice president, technology
and
operations, for Warner-Lambert Company and various executive-level
positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
"I am looking forward to
working with an excellent staff of IT professionals at CAS and am proud to be
associated with an organization
whose information services have become
essential in the work of scientists around the world," said
Bergner.
Bergner holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Marquette
University and continued his graduate studies at Marquette in
electrical
engineering. He is a recognized expert in strategic planning
and business integration, technology globalization, operational
benchmarking
and cost analysis, and is a frequent presenter on technology
issues to scientific audiences. Bergner also holds two patents and has
authored
numerous publications.
CAS, a division of the American
Chemical Society, is an organization of scientists creating and delivering the
most complete and effective
digital information environment for scientific
research and discovery. CAS provides pathways to published research in the
world's journal and
patent literature - virtually everything relevant to
chemistry plus a wealth of information in the life sciences and a wide range of
other
scientific disciplines, back to the beginning of the twentieth
century. In addition to offering STN in North America, CAS publishes the
print
version of Chemical Abstracts (CA), related publications and CD-ROM
services; operates the CAS Chemical Registry; produces a family of
online
databases; and offers the SciFinder desktop research tool. The CAS Web
site is at http://www.cas.org.
------------------------
CAS Extends
Access to Additional Research from Early 20th Century
CA Databases Add More Than 7,000 Publication Records back to 1900
Philadelphia, August 23, 2004 - CAS has expanded its "Scientific Century" project by making thousands of additional early 20th century articles from American Chemical Society (ACS) journals and others available online. Planned for release in September, the enhanced content will enable researchers to access more than 7,000 additional records back to 1900, including publications even older than the beginning of Chemical Abstracts (CA). CAS announced the expanded access
during the ACS National Meeting being held this week in Philadelphia.
"We have learned from the scientists and information specialists who rely on our information services that 'more is better,' and literature from an earlier era can contain findings highly relevant to current research," said Dr. Matthew Toussant, CAS Vice President, Editorial Operations. "Now we have gone even beyond the traditional coverage of CA to make thousands of published studies easily accessible online."
Included in the newly added information accessible through STN. services, SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar is material from ACS journals and other sources, as described below:
o Journal of the American Chemical Society - more than 1,500 records, including abstracts for journal articles and summaries for book reviews;
o Journal of Physical Chemistry - more than 5,200 records, including abstracts of articles published in the journal plus other "abstracts of interest" to the journal (i. e. published in other sources of the time)
o More than 400 documents of lasting importance published from 1900 - 1912 in various sources and not originally covered in CA.
These are landmark publications cited in CA/CAplus files since 1998.
Among the early literature studies that continue to be cited in more recent publications are a paper on radioactive substances by Marie and Pierre Curie in Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences (1902); a study by Emil Fischer on amino acids, polypeptides, and proteins in Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft (1906); and a paper by Victor Grignard regarding organometallic combinations of magnesium and their application to the
synthesis of alcohols and hydrocarbons, from Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences (1900).
Since CAS announced the Scientific Century project in 2001, more than 3.5 million documents from the first half of the twentieth century have been added to the online CA and CAplus files. In total, 23 million records for journal articles, patents, symposia, books, and other documents of scientific interest are available in these databases, which are accessible though SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar and the STN services, including STN Easy and STN on the Web.
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, is an organization of scientists creating and delivering the most complete and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery. CAS provides pathways to published research in the world's journal and patent literature - virtually everything relevant to chemistry plus a wealth of information in the life sciences and a wide range of other scientific disciplines - back to the beginning of the twentieth century.
In addition to offering STN in North America, CAS publishes the print version of Chemical Abstracts (CA), related publications and CD-ROM services; operates the CAS Chemical Registry; produces a family of online databases; and offers the SciFinder desktop research tool. The
CAS Web site is at http://www.cas.org/.
CA Databases Add More Than 7,000 Publication Records back to 1900
Philadelphia, August 23, 2004 - CAS has expanded its "Scientific Century" project by making thousands of additional early 20th century articles from American Chemical Society (ACS) journals and others available online. Planned for release in September, the enhanced content will enable researchers to access more than 7,000 additional records back to 1900, including publications even older than the beginning of Chemical Abstracts (CA). CAS announced the expanded access
during the ACS National Meeting being held this week in Philadelphia.
"We have learned from the scientists and information specialists who rely on our information services that 'more is better,' and literature from an earlier era can contain findings highly relevant to current research," said Dr. Matthew Toussant, CAS Vice President, Editorial Operations. "Now we have gone even beyond the traditional coverage of CA to make thousands of published studies easily accessible online."
Included in the newly added information accessible through STN. services, SciFinder and SciFinder Scholar is material from ACS journals and other sources, as described below:
o Journal of the American Chemical Society - more than 1,500 records, including abstracts for journal articles and summaries for book reviews;
o Journal of Physical Chemistry - more than 5,200 records, including abstracts of articles published in the journal plus other "abstracts of interest" to the journal (i. e. published in other sources of the time)
o More than 400 documents of lasting importance published from 1900 - 1912 in various sources and not originally covered in CA.
These are landmark publications cited in CA/CAplus files since 1998.
Among the early literature studies that continue to be cited in more recent publications are a paper on radioactive substances by Marie and Pierre Curie in Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences (1902); a study by Emil Fischer on amino acids, polypeptides, and proteins in Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft (1906); and a paper by Victor Grignard regarding organometallic combinations of magnesium and their application to the
synthesis of alcohols and hydrocarbons, from Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences (1900).
Since CAS announced the Scientific Century project in 2001, more than 3.5 million documents from the first half of the twentieth century have been added to the online CA and CAplus files. In total, 23 million records for journal articles, patents, symposia, books, and other documents of scientific interest are available in these databases, which are accessible though SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar and the STN services, including STN Easy and STN on the Web.
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, is an organization of scientists creating and delivering the most complete and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery. CAS provides pathways to published research in the world's journal and patent literature - virtually everything relevant to chemistry plus a wealth of information in the life sciences and a wide range of other scientific disciplines - back to the beginning of the twentieth century.
In addition to offering STN in North America, CAS publishes the print version of Chemical Abstracts (CA), related publications and CD-ROM services; operates the CAS Chemical Registry; produces a family of online databases; and offers the SciFinder desktop research tool. The
CAS Web site is at http://www.cas.org/.
MDL
MDL(r) Isentris(tm) takes discovery
informatics to the next level
-First n-tier informatics platform expressly
designed to boost R&D productivity in the life sciences-
At Drug
Discovery Technology(r) 2004, Elsevier MDL commenced public demonstrations of
MDL(r) Isentris(tm), the first, fully supported, out-of-the-box, n-tier
discovery informatics platform specifically designed for life sciences
researchers. The successor to MDL(r) ISIS, Isentris is unique in supporting
business process, data, and application integration across chemistry and biology
workflows, as well as a new self-service research model.
"The most
pressing challenge for life sciences R&D today is to improve the quality and
throughput of the drug development pipeline and cost-effectively develop more
successful medicines," said Lars Barfod, president and CEO of Elsevier MDL. "MDL
Isentris helps the life sciences industry meet this challenge by providing a
discovery informatics platform that broadly improves project team efficiency,
saves researchers' time, and lowers costs."
Built on over 25 years of
informatics experience, MDL Isentris brings true integration to the discovery
process and empowers life sciences productivity by providing self-service access
to integrated discovery data, new pioneering methods for reducing data
complexity, a modern research environment supporting integrated discovery
applications, and an open, standards-based platform for application development
and integration.
For researchers and
developers, Isentris incorporates a company's enterprise-wide business processes
that govern how information is collected, stored, used, and shared- helping
global project teams operate with consistent data and unified rules governing
data access and analysis. Isentris consolidates a company's chemical and
biological data from multiple public and proprietary sources-ensuring that
critical information gets to the right researchers in the right format. Isentris
integrates the critical software applications research organizations use to
capture, visualize, analyze, manage, and share data-giving scientists the right
tools to exploit their findings fully. Isentris enables research IT groups to
develop and deliver integrated scientific applications and custom functionality
quickly and cost-effectively-promoting more innovative, productive research and
new return-on-investment opportunities.
"MDL Isentris delivers both
an integration engine and a total workflow solution," said Dr. Seth Pinsky,
senior vice president and chief technology officer of Elsevier MDL. "Isentris
builds upon the latest Microsoft(r) client technology to offer a remarkably
intuitive and flexible interface for scientific users. Because ISIS and Isentris
work together, organizations wishing to improve the integration of their
discovery operations can incorporate Isentris as gradually or as rapidly as they
wish, preserving their current investment in informatics
infrastructure."
The four core components of MDL Isentris are the MDL(r)
Base desktop application supporting a unique task-centric workflow that presents
chemistry and biology data in a single view; the MDL(r) Draw chemical
structure-drawing and -rendering tool; the integrating MDL(r) Core
Interface development environment; and MDL(r) Direct (data cartridges) for
storing, searching, and retrieving molecules and reactions using Oracle(r)
technology.
-----------------------------
-Redesigned, easier-to-use application enhances value of CrossFire Beilstein and CrossFire Gmelin for industrial, government, and academic researchers-
MDL Information Systems GmbH (Elsevier MDL) has announced the release of MDL(r) CrossFire Commander 7.0, the latest version of its integrated client application for searching the CrossFire Beilstein electronic collection of organic chemistry data and the CrossFire Gmelin collection of inorganic and organometallic data. With a single query, MDL CrossFire Commander searches over the largest collection of graphically searchable chemical structures and reactions available to researchers.
Michiel Kolman, Managing Director of MDL Information Systems GmbH, stated: "MDL CrossFire Commander 7.0 is a significant benefit to researchers in industry, government, and academia, because it successfully integrates essential research content with a redesigned, more user-friendly client application for formulating queries and managing hitsets. In addition, by providing straightforward links to substance information, reactions, and other Elsevier MDL databases, Commander 7.0 will help researchers fully exploit the wealth of the Beilstein and Gmelin Databases."
New features and enhancements in MDL CrossFire Commander 7.0 include:
Sorting and Grouping-Researchers can sort and group hitsets using different keys; for example, sorting citations by publication year, substances by molecular weight, and reactions by yield. Grouping provides a useful overview of a hitset; for example, grouping substances by their pharmacological effect and reactions by their classes. Reaction grouping capability is achieved through reaction ClassCode technology licensed from InfoChem GmbH.
One window technology-A redesigned user interface makes Commander 7.0 easy to use by combining all functions and features in a single window and by providing views with the MDL standard look-and-feel.
Find field-This feature helps researchers to find their way through the various data fields in a CrossFire database, enabling them to take full advantage of the many facts in the database and keep searches on target. Simply enter the name of a sought-after item and Commander 7.0 displays the field where that information is located.
History tracking-A record of past sessions is valuable for locating results and recovering successful queries. By letting researchers view the results of past searches and queries, Commander 7.0 makes it easy to use and modify the work from past sessions, thereby shortening search times and accelerating discovery.
Update alerting service-The Commander license includes an email alert service, which automatically informs researchers of database updates relevant to selected research topics. This saves researchers from having to run a query each time an update is loaded to find out what is new.
MDL CrossFire Commander is also available in Elsevier MDL's powerful, Web-based research environment, DiscoveryGate(r). For example, once researchers complete a search in Commander, they can retrieve related records from 21 additional content sources in DiscoveryGate, including chemical sourcing, synthetic methodology, bioactivity, pharmacology, metabolism/toxicology, and molecular biology databases, as well as major reference works.
Thomson Pharma (SM) is a dynamic information solution for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. It features the best scientific, patent, and financial content offered by Thomson businesses. This premium content has been enhanced with powerful search tools and integrated into a single solution that professionals working at all stages of drug development can personalize to suit their needs.
Built using cutting-edge portal and Internet technologies, Thomson Pharma enables you to browse, search, and analyze multiple sources of data. You can create dynamic reports that accumulate over time and incorporate select information pulled from a wide range of sources. And you can personalize the way you search, see results, view information, and more.
The key areas of content within Thomson Pharma include:
* Drugs
* Intellectual property
* Literature and news
* Companies
* Targets
* Chemistry
* Sequences
By bringing together the multiple strengths offered by Thomson businesses at different points of the drug discovery and development process, Thomson Pharma will enhance organization's ability to innovate, work faster and smarter, and attain outstanding research and business results.
To find out more, go to: http://www.thomsonpharma.com
Elsevier MDL releases MDL(r) CrossFire Commander
7.0
-Redesigned, easier-to-use application enhances value of CrossFire Beilstein and CrossFire Gmelin for industrial, government, and academic researchers-
MDL Information Systems GmbH (Elsevier MDL) has announced the release of MDL(r) CrossFire Commander 7.0, the latest version of its integrated client application for searching the CrossFire Beilstein electronic collection of organic chemistry data and the CrossFire Gmelin collection of inorganic and organometallic data. With a single query, MDL CrossFire Commander searches over the largest collection of graphically searchable chemical structures and reactions available to researchers.
Michiel Kolman, Managing Director of MDL Information Systems GmbH, stated: "MDL CrossFire Commander 7.0 is a significant benefit to researchers in industry, government, and academia, because it successfully integrates essential research content with a redesigned, more user-friendly client application for formulating queries and managing hitsets. In addition, by providing straightforward links to substance information, reactions, and other Elsevier MDL databases, Commander 7.0 will help researchers fully exploit the wealth of the Beilstein and Gmelin Databases."
New features and enhancements in MDL CrossFire Commander 7.0 include:
Sorting and Grouping-Researchers can sort and group hitsets using different keys; for example, sorting citations by publication year, substances by molecular weight, and reactions by yield. Grouping provides a useful overview of a hitset; for example, grouping substances by their pharmacological effect and reactions by their classes. Reaction grouping capability is achieved through reaction ClassCode technology licensed from InfoChem GmbH.
One window technology-A redesigned user interface makes Commander 7.0 easy to use by combining all functions and features in a single window and by providing views with the MDL standard look-and-feel.
Find field-This feature helps researchers to find their way through the various data fields in a CrossFire database, enabling them to take full advantage of the many facts in the database and keep searches on target. Simply enter the name of a sought-after item and Commander 7.0 displays the field where that information is located.
History tracking-A record of past sessions is valuable for locating results and recovering successful queries. By letting researchers view the results of past searches and queries, Commander 7.0 makes it easy to use and modify the work from past sessions, thereby shortening search times and accelerating discovery.
Update alerting service-The Commander license includes an email alert service, which automatically informs researchers of database updates relevant to selected research topics. This saves researchers from having to run a query each time an update is loaded to find out what is new.
MDL CrossFire Commander is also available in Elsevier MDL's powerful, Web-based research environment, DiscoveryGate(r). For example, once researchers complete a search in Commander, they can retrieve related records from 21 additional content sources in DiscoveryGate, including chemical sourcing, synthetic methodology, bioactivity, pharmacology, metabolism/toxicology, and molecular biology databases, as well as major reference works.
Thomson Pharma (SM) is a dynamic information solution for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. It features the best scientific, patent, and financial content offered by Thomson businesses. This premium content has been enhanced with powerful search tools and integrated into a single solution that professionals working at all stages of drug development can personalize to suit their needs.
Built using cutting-edge portal and Internet technologies, Thomson Pharma enables you to browse, search, and analyze multiple sources of data. You can create dynamic reports that accumulate over time and incorporate select information pulled from a wide range of sources. And you can personalize the way you search, see results, view information, and more.
The key areas of content within Thomson Pharma include:
* Drugs
* Intellectual property
* Literature and news
* Companies
* Targets
* Chemistry
* Sequences
By bringing together the multiple strengths offered by Thomson businesses at different points of the drug discovery and development process, Thomson Pharma will enhance organization's ability to innovate, work faster and smarter, and attain outstanding research and business results.
To find out more, go to: http://www.thomsonpharma.com
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin
Thermophysical Data:
FIZ-Chemie Berlin launches Infotherm
Which pressure and temperature leads to the highest yields and quality at low power consumption in a chemical process?
The database Infotherm offers thermophysical data of commonly used mixtures as well as of pure compounds. The expert database by FIZ CHEMIE Berlin is available online at http://www.chemistry.de/.
A mixture of compounds is more than the sum of the properties of its components.
The simulation of its behaviour is often afflicted with significant deviations. Infotherm ranks among the most extensive data pools of mixtures with an unsurpassed number of properties and meets highest standards in database quality.
Soon Infotherm will be also available on CD-ROM.
The database has detailed information on more than 10,500 substances and 23,000 mixtures in 155,000 tables. The data has been excerpted from 11,000 articles, data collections, handbooks, reports and protocols by highly qualified chemists at FIZ CHEMIE Berlin. Full bibliographic data leads to the original source. The annual input is currently more than 15,000 tables and the database is updated monthly. Coverage starts in 1985.
Besides data related to volume, temperature and pressure, calorimetric and surface properties, phase equilibria, critical data, heat conductancies and capacities, acoustic and optical properties are available as well.
The query procedure is very easy and self-explanatory. In addition to a "simple search" form where one can search by any combination of e.g. chemical, trivial or IUPAC name, the CAS-number or the molecular formula, and a property or an author, there is an "expert search" mode with the option to combine an arbitrary number of query elements in order to retrieve exactly the relevant datasets from the enormous amount of information available.
Following the query, selected datasets or the entire hit list can be viewed and saved on the webserver for future reference. Also selected datasets can be downloaded in either XML-, CSV (Excel)-, PDF- or HTML-format.
The graphical representation of the data enables the user to evaluate their accuracy and plausibility and to identify any peaks at a glance.
Except for critical data, information about pure compounds is free of charge. For information about mixtures a display fee is charged in the pay per view mode. For more frequent users subscription licenses for Infotherm( are also available.
Further information: http://www.fiz-chemie.de
Contact: Dr. Joerg Homann
mailto:homann@fiz-chemie.de
FIZ-Chemie Berlin
Franklinstraße 11
D-10587 Berlin
Germany
Which pressure and temperature leads to the highest yields and quality at low power consumption in a chemical process?
The database Infotherm offers thermophysical data of commonly used mixtures as well as of pure compounds. The expert database by FIZ CHEMIE Berlin is available online at http://www.chemistry.de/.
A mixture of compounds is more than the sum of the properties of its components.
The simulation of its behaviour is often afflicted with significant deviations. Infotherm ranks among the most extensive data pools of mixtures with an unsurpassed number of properties and meets highest standards in database quality.
Soon Infotherm will be also available on CD-ROM.
The database has detailed information on more than 10,500 substances and 23,000 mixtures in 155,000 tables. The data has been excerpted from 11,000 articles, data collections, handbooks, reports and protocols by highly qualified chemists at FIZ CHEMIE Berlin. Full bibliographic data leads to the original source. The annual input is currently more than 15,000 tables and the database is updated monthly. Coverage starts in 1985.
Besides data related to volume, temperature and pressure, calorimetric and surface properties, phase equilibria, critical data, heat conductancies and capacities, acoustic and optical properties are available as well.
The query procedure is very easy and self-explanatory. In addition to a "simple search" form where one can search by any combination of e.g. chemical, trivial or IUPAC name, the CAS-number or the molecular formula, and a property or an author, there is an "expert search" mode with the option to combine an arbitrary number of query elements in order to retrieve exactly the relevant datasets from the enormous amount of information available.
Following the query, selected datasets or the entire hit list can be viewed and saved on the webserver for future reference. Also selected datasets can be downloaded in either XML-, CSV (Excel)-, PDF- or HTML-format.
The graphical representation of the data enables the user to evaluate their accuracy and plausibility and to identify any peaks at a glance.
Except for critical data, information about pure compounds is free of charge. For information about mixtures a display fee is charged in the pay per view mode. For more frequent users subscription licenses for Infotherm( are also available.
Further information: http://www.fiz-chemie.de
Contact: Dr. Joerg Homann
mailto:homann@fiz-chemie.de
FIZ-Chemie Berlin
Franklinstraße 11
D-10587 Berlin
Germany
Accelrys
Accelrys' latest
releases
Chemicals Available for Purchase (CAP) 2004.1
The latest Accelrys release is the Chemicals Available for Purchase database. Accelrys has consolidated the contents of many suppliers' catalogs into one database, allowing you to access the information in a consistent manner. Users can search compounds based on structure (exact, substructure and similarity) and/or suppliers, physical properties, prices, purity or other vendor-supplied data or indeed by any other suitable criterion. CAP can be used in conjunction with AEI or as standalone making full use of the Accord technology. Furthermore, a 3D multiconformers version of CAP is available on Catalyst format. CAP is also used to generate a LUDI fragment database for de novo drug design using commercially available compounds.
CAP interface is comprehensive and simple to use.
New Development Tools launched
Accelrys is pleased to announce the launch of our new Accord Web development range of tools. Accord Enterprise WebKit 1.0 allows quick efficient development of web interfaces to Accelrys Accord Enterprise Informatics system. Accelrys extension to the JSTL (Java Standard Tag Library) provides the ability to build custom web pages to send chemistry queries to the AEI system and display the resulting structures and data in multiple formats, including SVG pictures, 'live' chemistry and SDF files. Accord Web Viewer 1.0 is a java applet - easily embeddable in web pages, which allows molecules and reactions from standard chemical drawing packages to be sent to a server - allowing querying of databases or property calculation over a web interface with no requirement for client installation.
AE Webkit allows you to access AEI data via your browser
Accord Developer Tools - Version 6.0
Accelrys latest versions of the industry leading Rapid Application Development tools - Accord Chemistry Control, Accord Grid Control and Accord Chemistry SDK 6.0 provide advances in both chemical functionality and usability. Underlying these products is the Accord Chemistry Engine, whose new functionality includes support for Markush library schema, improvements in Stereochemistry, Fingerprinting & Similarity calculations, and new file format support, plus the next generation Matcher engine and CombiChem enumeration engine. You can quickly and easily create 'chemically aware' applications using your preferred development environment - whether it is VB, C++, Java, .Net or many other languages. Standard functionality includes property calculation, file I/O from most standard chemistry file formats, advanced chemical fingerprinting plus substructure, exact & similarity searching of databases and files. Additionally, add-ons are available for ADME descriptor calculation, reaction based library enumeration and physicochemical property prediction. Advances in our Accord Grid Control for version 6.0 include support for Hyperlinks and pictures within cells. In the Chemistry Control, users can now 'lasso-select' and modify atoms and bonds for structure modification and advanced query generation.
At ACS last week, LION launched LeadNavigator(tm), a chemically intelligent analytics product that enables research organizations to make faster and better compound identification, optimization and prioritization decisions. The new cheminformatics product allows researchers to analyze large sets of chemical and numerical data through a single, intuitive interface, which enables more efficient decision-making and collaboration by an organization without adding unnecessary complexity and overhead. LeadNavigator(tm) is a component of LION Lead Engine, LION's cheminformatics product suite.
LeadNavigator(tm) leverages the technology developed by LION as part of the Bayer PIx (Pharmacophore Informatics) project. "The PIx project was initiated in 2000 to improve Bayer's ability to identify, select and optimize the most promising drug candidates, by pulling together and visualizing data from several diverse sources. While regular chemical spreadsheets can partly solve this problem, the available solutions have not been well adapted for medicinal chemistry. Commercially available software has had limited chemical intelligence, forcing scientists to go back and forth between their data and their analysis tools, wasting valuable time," said Hanno Wild, Ph.D., Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Bayer HealthCare AG. "The chemical worksheet is the central component of the PIx platform, and it is currently being used at Bayer by scientists worldwide. Through the chemical spreadsheet LION developed for us, Bayer scientists have access to all relevant data and tools from a single point of access. LION's decision to productize this proven technology in LeadNavigator(tm) will be beneficial to the life science industry."
For more information on LeadNavigator(tm), please visit our website at http://www.lionbioscience.com/leadnavigator.
LION also announced two strategic cheminformatics partnerships, with BioByte and ChemNavigator. The partnerships will enhance the LION Lead Engine(tm) product suite, and reflect LION's continuing involvement in the cheminformatics field.
BioByte, a pioneer in the field of QSAR (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship), will provide its cLogP(tm) calculation software for incorporation into LION's LeadNavigator(tm) software product. BioByte's cLogP(tm) software provides accurate hydrophobic estimations and calculations based on established chemical interactions, not solely on statistics, thereby providing valuable and precise information to the user.
ChemNavigator, a cheminformatics company dedicated to lowering the cost and risk of drug discovery, is providing LION with custom software modules which are integrated into LeadNavigator(tm). In addition, LION has entered into an exclusive global reseller agreement to resell ChemNavigator's database subscriptions, products, and services.
For more information on these agreements, please visit
http://www.lionbioscience.com/e5/e45342/e47529/e60390/index_eng.html.
Chemicals Available for Purchase (CAP) 2004.1
The latest Accelrys release is the Chemicals Available for Purchase database. Accelrys has consolidated the contents of many suppliers' catalogs into one database, allowing you to access the information in a consistent manner. Users can search compounds based on structure (exact, substructure and similarity) and/or suppliers, physical properties, prices, purity or other vendor-supplied data or indeed by any other suitable criterion. CAP can be used in conjunction with AEI or as standalone making full use of the Accord technology. Furthermore, a 3D multiconformers version of CAP is available on Catalyst format. CAP is also used to generate a LUDI fragment database for de novo drug design using commercially available compounds.
CAP interface is comprehensive and simple to use.
New Development Tools launched
Accelrys is pleased to announce the launch of our new Accord Web development range of tools. Accord Enterprise WebKit 1.0 allows quick efficient development of web interfaces to Accelrys Accord Enterprise Informatics system. Accelrys extension to the JSTL (Java Standard Tag Library) provides the ability to build custom web pages to send chemistry queries to the AEI system and display the resulting structures and data in multiple formats, including SVG pictures, 'live' chemistry and SDF files. Accord Web Viewer 1.0 is a java applet - easily embeddable in web pages, which allows molecules and reactions from standard chemical drawing packages to be sent to a server - allowing querying of databases or property calculation over a web interface with no requirement for client installation.
AE Webkit allows you to access AEI data via your browser
Accord Developer Tools - Version 6.0
Accelrys latest versions of the industry leading Rapid Application Development tools - Accord Chemistry Control, Accord Grid Control and Accord Chemistry SDK 6.0 provide advances in both chemical functionality and usability. Underlying these products is the Accord Chemistry Engine, whose new functionality includes support for Markush library schema, improvements in Stereochemistry, Fingerprinting & Similarity calculations, and new file format support, plus the next generation Matcher engine and CombiChem enumeration engine. You can quickly and easily create 'chemically aware' applications using your preferred development environment - whether it is VB, C++, Java, .Net or many other languages. Standard functionality includes property calculation, file I/O from most standard chemistry file formats, advanced chemical fingerprinting plus substructure, exact & similarity searching of databases and files. Additionally, add-ons are available for ADME descriptor calculation, reaction based library enumeration and physicochemical property prediction. Advances in our Accord Grid Control for version 6.0 include support for Hyperlinks and pictures within cells. In the Chemistry Control, users can now 'lasso-select' and modify atoms and bonds for structure modification and advanced query generation.
ACS Publications Division
American Chemical
Society plans to launch chemical biology publication
The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, announced that it will launch the first print issue of a publication on chemical biology in January 2006. This peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scholarly publication will focus on the fast growing field of chemical biology, broadly defined as "the use of rigorous chemical and biological approaches to solve problems in living systems."
The scientific landscape is undergoing enormous change and growth in multidisciplinary areas. Chemical Biology represents a major new initiative at the interface between two of the world's fundamental sciences, biology and chemistry, according to ACS publishing officials.
The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, announced that it will launch the first print issue of a publication on chemical biology in January 2006. This peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scholarly publication will focus on the fast growing field of chemical biology, broadly defined as "the use of rigorous chemical and biological approaches to solve problems in living systems."
The scientific landscape is undergoing enormous change and growth in multidisciplinary areas. Chemical Biology represents a major new initiative at the interface between two of the world's fundamental sciences, biology and chemistry, according to ACS publishing officials.
At ACS last week, LION launched LeadNavigator(tm), a chemically intelligent analytics product that enables research organizations to make faster and better compound identification, optimization and prioritization decisions. The new cheminformatics product allows researchers to analyze large sets of chemical and numerical data through a single, intuitive interface, which enables more efficient decision-making and collaboration by an organization without adding unnecessary complexity and overhead. LeadNavigator(tm) is a component of LION Lead Engine, LION's cheminformatics product suite.
LeadNavigator(tm) leverages the technology developed by LION as part of the Bayer PIx (Pharmacophore Informatics) project. "The PIx project was initiated in 2000 to improve Bayer's ability to identify, select and optimize the most promising drug candidates, by pulling together and visualizing data from several diverse sources. While regular chemical spreadsheets can partly solve this problem, the available solutions have not been well adapted for medicinal chemistry. Commercially available software has had limited chemical intelligence, forcing scientists to go back and forth between their data and their analysis tools, wasting valuable time," said Hanno Wild, Ph.D., Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Bayer HealthCare AG. "The chemical worksheet is the central component of the PIx platform, and it is currently being used at Bayer by scientists worldwide. Through the chemical spreadsheet LION developed for us, Bayer scientists have access to all relevant data and tools from a single point of access. LION's decision to productize this proven technology in LeadNavigator(tm) will be beneficial to the life science industry."
For more information on LeadNavigator(tm), please visit our website at http://www.lionbioscience.com/leadnavigator.
LION also announced two strategic cheminformatics partnerships, with BioByte and ChemNavigator. The partnerships will enhance the LION Lead Engine(tm) product suite, and reflect LION's continuing involvement in the cheminformatics field.
BioByte, a pioneer in the field of QSAR (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship), will provide its cLogP(tm) calculation software for incorporation into LION's LeadNavigator(tm) software product. BioByte's cLogP(tm) software provides accurate hydrophobic estimations and calculations based on established chemical interactions, not solely on statistics, thereby providing valuable and precise information to the user.
ChemNavigator, a cheminformatics company dedicated to lowering the cost and risk of drug discovery, is providing LION with custom software modules which are integrated into LeadNavigator(tm). In addition, LION has entered into an exclusive global reseller agreement to resell ChemNavigator's database subscriptions, products, and services.
For more information on these agreements, please visit
http://www.lionbioscience.com/e5/e45342/e47529/e60390/index_eng.html.
LHASA Limited
LHASA Limited is a not-for-profit organisation
which develops software on behalf of a collaborative group of sponsoring
organisations. The DEREK for Windows and METEOR programs predict the
toxicity and xenobiotic fate of chemicals, respectively. Predictions draw
on a knowledgebase of structure property relationships contained within each
program. The software is used in applications which include high
throughput screening, accelerating the assessment of intermediates in an
occupational health context, supporting submissions to regulators and aiding the
interpretation of mass spectrometry data in metabolism studies. LHASA
Limited has also launched a new initiative to create a structure-searchable
toxicology database called VITIC, which will have stringent quality control for
data entry and sophisticated querying tools.
LHASA Limited, Department of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Tel. +44 113 343 6533 Fax +44 113 343 6535 Email info@lhasalimited.org http://www.lhasalimited.org/
LHASA Limited, Department of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Tel. +44 113 343 6533 Fax +44 113 343 6535 Email info@lhasalimited.org http://www.lhasalimited.org/
SimBioSys
SimBioSys, Inc., Toronto, Canada
eHiTS is based on an innovative systematic exhaustive algorithm, that does not have any random components. Furthermore, it is not limited to a predetermined discrete set of dihedral angles like other systematic methods. eHiTS guarantees to find the best solution according to the scoring function in the full continuous search space.
Validation studies using a standard set of 200 protein / ligand complexes from the PDB database, illustrate eHiTS accuracy at reproducing experimentally determine ligand binding poses and therefore its usefulness in docking applications. The following table summarizes the results, when using the standard eHiTS parameter set. For more detailed information please visit: eHiTS validation study.
For more information, or to obtain a demo version of eHiTS 4.4, please visit http://www.simbiosys.ca/.
SimBioSys, Inc., Toronto, Canada
eHiTS 4.4
SimBioSys, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of eHiTS version 4.4, for October 2004. eHiTS 4.4 is a fast, flexible ligand docking package which is fully automated, making it suitable for high throughput screening applications. Version 4.4 boasts a new, highly efficient architecture, including improved multi-threading computations, decreasing overall wait times for dockings. eHiTS 4.4 is available for Linux and SGI platforms.eHiTS is based on an innovative systematic exhaustive algorithm, that does not have any random components. Furthermore, it is not limited to a predetermined discrete set of dihedral angles like other systematic methods. eHiTS guarantees to find the best solution according to the scoring function in the full continuous search space.
Validation studies using a standard set of 200 protein / ligand complexes from the PDB database, illustrate eHiTS accuracy at reproducing experimentally determine ligand binding poses and therefore its usefulness in docking applications. The following table summarizes the results, when using the standard eHiTS parameter set. For more detailed information please visit: eHiTS validation study.
|
Standard mode |
Closest to Xray |
Best scoring |
|---|---|---|
|
Cases when RMSD < 2.0Å |
100% |
66% |
|
Cases when RMSD < 1.5Å |
86% |
51% |
|
Cases when RMSD < 1.0Å |
56% |
29% |
|
Average RMSD |
0.97 Å |
2.06 Å |
| Average time*: | 5 min / ligand | |
The eHiTS run typically takes 2-8 minutes on a single processor workstation
when the standard parameter set is used (producing the above results). The
program also offers the use of another parameter set providing much faster
processing, intended for preliminary screening of large databases. The eHiTS
program runs about 10-20 times faster when this VHTS parameter set is used, i.e.
typical run time is in the range of 10-20 seconds per ligand on a single CPU.
The following table shows the accuracy results obtained when running the program
with the VHTS parameter set.
Note*: the average time in both cases (standard mode and VHTS mode) was
measured on a single processor Pentim IV, 2.4 GHz Linux PC.
|
Fast VHTS mode |
Closest to Xray |
Best scoring |
|---|---|---|
|
Cases when RMSD < 2.0Å |
70% |
44% |
|
Cases when RMSD < 1.5Å |
46% |
29% |
|
Cases when RMSD < 1.0Å |
25% |
18% |
|
Average RMSD |
1.78 Å |
2.66 Å |
| Average
time*: |
29.75 s / ligand | |
The above table demonstrates that the accuracy loss is about 30% with the gain of 10-20 times speed-up.
SimBioSys seeks collaborations with academic research groups that conduct docking studies. The eHiTS software is offered free of charge for academic institutions under such collaborative agreements.For more information, or to obtain a demo version of eHiTS 4.4, please visit http://www.simbiosys.ca/.
Leadscope, Inc.
Leadscope
1393 Dublin Road
Columbus, Ohio 43215 USA
1393 Dublin Road
Columbus, Ohio 43215 USA
Leadscope Inc. markets software, databases, and
consulting services. The Leadscope software is a chemical structure-based
decision support solution, used on compounds from a handful to hundreds of
thousands. It is the fastest way to get familiar with your data set.
A number of the key features include:
o Informatics: Methods for visualizing, rapidly grouping and statistically modeling collections of compounds and associated information are implemented in Leadscope. These include a hierarchical substructural grouping (based on over 27,000 pre-defined named substructures), clustering, scaffolding, R-Group analysis and decision trees. In addition, Leadscope will automatically calculate the following properties: alogP, molecular weight, polar surface area, number of hydrogen bond donors, number of hydrogen bond acceptors, atom counts, and number of rotatable bonds.
Leadscope can operate as a client-server or standalone application. It has been on the market since 1999 (when the PC-product was released). It is used extensively within the pharmaceutical, biotech, agro-chemical, and consumer product industries, as well as regulatory agencies.
For more information, please contact us at:
Email:mailto:sales@leadscope.com
Phone: 614 675 3730
o Informatics: Methods for visualizing, rapidly grouping and statistically modeling collections of compounds and associated information are implemented in Leadscope. These include a hierarchical substructural grouping (based on over 27,000 pre-defined named substructures), clustering, scaffolding, R-Group analysis and decision trees. In addition, Leadscope will automatically calculate the following properties: alogP, molecular weight, polar surface area, number of hydrogen bond donors, number of hydrogen bond acceptors, atom counts, and number of rotatable bonds.
| Visualizations: Leadscope offers a number of methods for visualizing compound sets, structures, and data including statistical summaries of any groupings performed and histogram and scatterplot matrices of the data. |
| Searching: Techniques for searching compound collections include substructure, similarity, exact structure and the searching of the associated information with Boolean operations. |
| Databases: Along with the integration of a company's proprietary structures and data, Leadscope also provides two databases - known drugs and toxicity. |
Leadscope can operate as a client-server or standalone application. It has been on the market since 1999 (when the PC-product was released). It is used extensively within the pharmaceutical, biotech, agro-chemical, and consumer product industries, as well as regulatory agencies.
For more information, please contact us at:
Email:mailto:sales@leadscope.com
Phone: 614 675 3730
Teaching Chemical Information Workshop
submitted by Leah Solla
submitted by Leah Solla
SERMACS 2004 Joint Conference
The Southeastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society
Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
November 10-13, 2004
http://membership.acs.org/s/serm2004/index.html
Workshop - Teaching Chemical Information: Tips and Techniques
Date: Friday, November 12 Time: 8:00 AM
Location: Sheraton Imperial Hotel
Registration Fee: $10 (Div CINF members) $25 (non member rate - includes
1-year membership fee)
Instructors: Leah Solla, Chemistry Librarian, Cornell University
Kitty Porter, Chemistry Librarian, Vanderbilt University
Workshop Description: Students need information to solve chemical problems, and chemical information sources are rapidly increasing in number and variety. This workshop is designed to give faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and librarians a range of approaches and tools for incorporating chemical information instruction into the chemistry curriculum. Topics include: key chemical information resources, information
skills to teach, sources for teaching materials, examples of successful programs, and overcoming barriers to teaching chemical information.
For further information, please contact Leah or Kitty.
The Southeastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society
Two-Year College Chemistry Consortium
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
November 10-13, 2004
http://membership.acs.org/s/serm2004/index.html
Workshop - Teaching Chemical Information: Tips and Techniques
Date: Friday, November 12 Time: 8:00 AM
Location: Sheraton Imperial Hotel
Registration Fee: $10 (Div CINF members) $25 (non member rate - includes
1-year membership fee)
Instructors: Leah Solla, Chemistry Librarian, Cornell University
Kitty Porter, Chemistry Librarian, Vanderbilt University
Workshop Description: Students need information to solve chemical problems, and chemical information sources are rapidly increasing in number and variety. This workshop is designed to give faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and librarians a range of approaches and tools for incorporating chemical information instruction into the chemistry curriculum. Topics include: key chemical information resources, information
skills to teach, sources for teaching materials, examples of successful programs, and overcoming barriers to teaching chemical information.
For further information, please contact Leah or Kitty.
Chemisty on the Web: Educational and Industrial Perspectives
CINF Division Symposium at NERM (North-East Regional Meeting of the ACS)
Rochester, New York
submitted by Susan Cardinal
Tuesday, November 2 at the Hyatt Regency in Grand Ballroom A from 8:30 - 11:40
For details about registration and more, go to http://www.NERM2004.org
or contact Sue Cardinal at scardinal@library.rochester.edu or (585) 275-9007
Presentations:
1) The librarian's role in selecting and promoting free world wide web materials to chemistry students, staff and faculty. P. Barnett
When chemistry students take organic chemistry, usually in their second year, they often begin to have information needs that are no longer fulfilled by their textbooks and class readings. Frequently these students need specific data on physical properties of organic compounds, and they come to the library for help with this task. At the same time, more advanced students have additional research needs. To obtain this data, both types of students often are best served by first consulting well-known and authoritative printed sources, or subscription based databases. However, a library-supported world wide web page, which points to free web resources, may prove extremely helpful in supporting chemical education. The aim of such a web page is to clearly show students the sites they need, but without overwhelming them. We must keep in mind that a web page that is too large and cumbersome will turn students off. The Science/Engineering Library of the City College of New York has such a web page: http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/Divisions/science/chemistry.html. The library publicizes the existence of this page to undergraduate chemistry majors, masters and doctoral chemistry students, and to chemistry faculty, all of whom may benefit from the sites listed. Besides offering links to subjects that students and researchers seek most frequently -- physical properties and spectra -- this page introduces students to other less familiar sites that could help them. One example of a site that they are unlikely to know about is the Clearinghouse on Chemical Information Instructional Materials. The library's page also lists the most popular guides to internet chemistry sources, and highlights some of the leading web sites in the major disciplines of chemistry. Another advantage to this web page is that it is small enough to make a convenient printed annotated handout that describes all of these selected web sites along with their URL's.
2) Reflections on developing and hosting magnetic resonance educational web sites. J. P. Hornak
The Basics of MRI (http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/mri/) and The Basics of NMR (http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/nmr/) are two introductory level, educational web sites on magnetic resonance of interest to chemists. Since their introduction in 1996, they have had respectively over 1.36 million and 570 thousand visitors from around the world. The English version of The Basics of MRI has been translated into three languages: Japanese, Russian, and Italian. Reader feedback indicates that these sites are a valuable resource to high school, undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, as well as educators, practitioners, and the general public. This presentation will review site design considerations such as content, architecture, and navigation; site hosting challenges, advantages, and disadvantages; and lessons learned from the readers over the past eight years.
3) Journal of Chemical Education Digital Library. J. L. Holmes and J. W. Moore
The Journal of Chemical Education has a long tradition of providing chemistry teachers with the information and tools they need to perform their craft. The Journal of Chemical Education Digital Library (JCE DLib) extends that tradition into the digital realm of the Internet. A collection of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) project of the NSF, the JCE Digital Library currently consists of JCE DigiDemos (tested chemistry demonstrations done digitally), JCE QBank (resources for student assessment), JCE SymMath (Mathcad, Mathematica, and Maple documents), and JCE WebWare (WWW-deliverable teaching tools). We will discuss the rationale for JCE DLib, demonstrate some of the tools currently available in the collection, and preview future features and additions to the collection.
4) Patent Classification and Free Patent Searching on the Web. A. Engel
Classification is the first intellectual treatment of a patent application after submission and the first expert input into the document independent of the inventor. Patent classification systems are the primary tools that patent examiners use to find prior art. Every inventor and patent information user needs to be familiar with these systems and how to use them effectively. This presentation will outline the classification systems used by the U.S., European and Japanese patent offices, Web resources for learning more about them, and how to use them to search for patents on free Web sites.
5) Data quality and chemistry data resources on the web. J. Rumble
One result of the Web and Internet Revolutions is the unprecedented availability of chemistry data, that is, data on the structure and properties of chemical compounds. Today with an inexpensive computer and an equally inexpensive Internet connection, a few key strokes find virtually anything you want in terms of chemical structure and property data. Or do they? If you are looking for data you can rely on, data quality is a major concern, and the wealth, if not plethora, of data often makes quality seem as an irrelevant feature. So how do you worry about data quality in this environment? In this talk, I outline major considerations that data resource builders, data disseminators, data searchers and data users should take into account. These considerations include: Understanding data quality from the data generators point of view; Knowing about measurement uncertainty and how is it expressed; Preserving data integrity throughout the data collection process; Evaluating data quality by independent experts; Determining database and data system quality; and Documenting data quality and pedigree through every step of the process. Examples are given of data quality issues for each consideration. Approaches for finding quality data in an overwhelming amount of data on the Web are discussed, including practical suggestions on how to succeed.
6) Proteomics: New Discipline, New Resources. F. W. Stoss
Tony Stankus, noted science bibliographer, has called proteomics "the next big thing in science." Recent advances in molecular biology and structural genetics have given rise to several distinct new disciplines in the biological and chemical sciences. Bioinformatics, genomics, and proteomics comprise the core of this "New Biology" from their roots in molecular and structural biology. Sequencing of the human and other species' genomes has dramatically increased the pool of proteins for which new agricultural, clinical, and therapeutic applications are being investigated and sought. Proteomics is one the disciplines of this "New Biology," and includes research and analyses for detecting, isolating, sequencing, all of the proteins in an organism-that is, identifying its proteome. Proteomics is rapidly emerging as a major new discipline in the areas of chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacy science, as efforts are undertaken to understand the biological mechanisms associated with protein function and structure. This presentation examines the bibliographic growth of the field of proteomics, and provides a compilation of several major Web-based databases, data archives, information gateways, and other data and information platforms useful for high school Advanced Placement Biology and Chemistry through graduate science courses.
Faculty Appointments at the Indiana University
Chemical Informatics Program
submitted by Gary Wiggins
CINF Division Symposium at NERM (North-East Regional Meeting of the ACS)
Rochester, New York
submitted by Susan Cardinal
Tuesday, November 2 at the Hyatt Regency in Grand Ballroom A from 8:30 - 11:40
For details about registration and more, go to http://www.NERM2004.org
or contact Sue Cardinal at scardinal@library.rochester.edu or (585) 275-9007
Presentations:
1) The librarian's role in selecting and promoting free world wide web materials to chemistry students, staff and faculty. P. Barnett
When chemistry students take organic chemistry, usually in their second year, they often begin to have information needs that are no longer fulfilled by their textbooks and class readings. Frequently these students need specific data on physical properties of organic compounds, and they come to the library for help with this task. At the same time, more advanced students have additional research needs. To obtain this data, both types of students often are best served by first consulting well-known and authoritative printed sources, or subscription based databases. However, a library-supported world wide web page, which points to free web resources, may prove extremely helpful in supporting chemical education. The aim of such a web page is to clearly show students the sites they need, but without overwhelming them. We must keep in mind that a web page that is too large and cumbersome will turn students off. The Science/Engineering Library of the City College of New York has such a web page: http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/Divisions/science/chemistry.html. The library publicizes the existence of this page to undergraduate chemistry majors, masters and doctoral chemistry students, and to chemistry faculty, all of whom may benefit from the sites listed. Besides offering links to subjects that students and researchers seek most frequently -- physical properties and spectra -- this page introduces students to other less familiar sites that could help them. One example of a site that they are unlikely to know about is the Clearinghouse on Chemical Information Instructional Materials. The library's page also lists the most popular guides to internet chemistry sources, and highlights some of the leading web sites in the major disciplines of chemistry. Another advantage to this web page is that it is small enough to make a convenient printed annotated handout that describes all of these selected web sites along with their URL's.
2) Reflections on developing and hosting magnetic resonance educational web sites. J. P. Hornak
The Basics of MRI (http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/mri/) and The Basics of NMR (http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/nmr/) are two introductory level, educational web sites on magnetic resonance of interest to chemists. Since their introduction in 1996, they have had respectively over 1.36 million and 570 thousand visitors from around the world. The English version of The Basics of MRI has been translated into three languages: Japanese, Russian, and Italian. Reader feedback indicates that these sites are a valuable resource to high school, undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, as well as educators, practitioners, and the general public. This presentation will review site design considerations such as content, architecture, and navigation; site hosting challenges, advantages, and disadvantages; and lessons learned from the readers over the past eight years.
3) Journal of Chemical Education Digital Library. J. L. Holmes and J. W. Moore
The Journal of Chemical Education has a long tradition of providing chemistry teachers with the information and tools they need to perform their craft. The Journal of Chemical Education Digital Library (JCE DLib) extends that tradition into the digital realm of the Internet. A collection of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) project of the NSF, the JCE Digital Library currently consists of JCE DigiDemos (tested chemistry demonstrations done digitally), JCE QBank (resources for student assessment), JCE SymMath (Mathcad, Mathematica, and Maple documents), and JCE WebWare (WWW-deliverable teaching tools). We will discuss the rationale for JCE DLib, demonstrate some of the tools currently available in the collection, and preview future features and additions to the collection.
4) Patent Classification and Free Patent Searching on the Web. A. Engel
Classification is the first intellectual treatment of a patent application after submission and the first expert input into the document independent of the inventor. Patent classification systems are the primary tools that patent examiners use to find prior art. Every inventor and patent information user needs to be familiar with these systems and how to use them effectively. This presentation will outline the classification systems used by the U.S., European and Japanese patent offices, Web resources for learning more about them, and how to use them to search for patents on free Web sites.
5) Data quality and chemistry data resources on the web. J. Rumble
One result of the Web and Internet Revolutions is the unprecedented availability of chemistry data, that is, data on the structure and properties of chemical compounds. Today with an inexpensive computer and an equally inexpensive Internet connection, a few key strokes find virtually anything you want in terms of chemical structure and property data. Or do they? If you are looking for data you can rely on, data quality is a major concern, and the wealth, if not plethora, of data often makes quality seem as an irrelevant feature. So how do you worry about data quality in this environment? In this talk, I outline major considerations that data resource builders, data disseminators, data searchers and data users should take into account. These considerations include: Understanding data quality from the data generators point of view; Knowing about measurement uncertainty and how is it expressed; Preserving data integrity throughout the data collection process; Evaluating data quality by independent experts; Determining database and data system quality; and Documenting data quality and pedigree through every step of the process. Examples are given of data quality issues for each consideration. Approaches for finding quality data in an overwhelming amount of data on the Web are discussed, including practical suggestions on how to succeed.
6) Proteomics: New Discipline, New Resources. F. W. Stoss
Tony Stankus, noted science bibliographer, has called proteomics "the next big thing in science." Recent advances in molecular biology and structural genetics have given rise to several distinct new disciplines in the biological and chemical sciences. Bioinformatics, genomics, and proteomics comprise the core of this "New Biology" from their roots in molecular and structural biology. Sequencing of the human and other species' genomes has dramatically increased the pool of proteins for which new agricultural, clinical, and therapeutic applications are being investigated and sought. Proteomics is one the disciplines of this "New Biology," and includes research and analyses for detecting, isolating, sequencing, all of the proteins in an organism-that is, identifying its proteome. Proteomics is rapidly emerging as a major new discipline in the areas of chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacy science, as efforts are undertaken to understand the biological mechanisms associated with protein function and structure. This presentation examines the bibliographic growth of the field of proteomics, and provides a compilation of several major Web-based databases, data archives, information gateways, and other data and information platforms useful for high school Advanced Placement Biology and Chemistry through graduate science courses.
submitted by Gary Wiggins
David Wild and Dimitris Agrafiotis Join the Indiana University Chemical Informatics Program Faculty
David Wild is teaching
the graduate Chemical Information Technology course at Indiana University’s
School of
Informatics during the fall 2004 semester. Also
Dimitris Agriafiotis has joined us as an adjunct professor of informatics.
Dr. Wild earned his Ph.D. in Chemoinformatics at
Sheffield University, United Kingdom, in 1994. For the last few years, he has
been teaching a chemical informatics course in
the pharmaceutical engineering program at the University of
Michigan. Formerly employed by Pfizer, he
left that company to found and direct his own
company, “Wild Ideas Consulting” ( http://www.wildideasconsulting.com/). Dr.
Wild holds a 0.70 FTE appointment as visiting
assistant professor of chemical informatics this year. Dimitris K. Agrafiotis is Senior Research Fellow and Team
Leader of Molecular Design & Informatics at Johnson
& Johnson Pharmaceutical Research &
Development. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical
organic chemistry from Imperial College, University of
London, in 1988 under the directions of Prof.
Henry Rzepa. In 1994, he moved to 3-Dimensional
Pharmaceuticals where he focused on the development of
intelligent computational tools for combinatorial chemistry and structure-based
drug design, serving as Executive Director of Informatics. Following the
acquisition of 3DP by Johnson & Johnson, he assumed line responsibility for
the computer-assisted drug design, informatics and database groups at the
integrated Exton, Cranbury and Spring House sites. He also oversees the
software and database systems supporting compound and screening logistics, and
directs the development of ABCD, a new global informatics platform for
J&J PRD.
Obituary - George Gorin
submitted by Val Metanomski
submitted by Val Metanomski
IN MEMORIAM
George Gorin (1925-2004)
We were saddened to learn about the death of George Gorin on March 22, 2004. The official ACS obituary was published in the June 21, 2004, issue of Chemical & Engineering News, but did not mention George's interest in chemical information, especially in its teaching, nor in the history or philosophy of chemistry.
Gary Wiggins reacted quickly to that omission and published a brief review of George's activities in these areas in the Fall
2004 issue of the Chemical Information Bulletin. [Editor's note - this short obituary was posted on CHMINF-L and is archived at https://listserv.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iub.exe?A2=ind0406&L=chminf-l&P=R10532&I=-3 .]
We feel that we should provide a somewhat more detailed account of George's many contributions. It is worth repeating that George obtained an A.B degree from Brooklyn College in 1944, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University in 1947 and 1949, respectively. His academic career included a position as a research associate at Rutgers University, assistant professorship at the University of Oregon, and full professorship at the Oklahoma State University.
His areas of research included studies on the redox behavior and exchange reactions of thiols and disulfides, mercapto reactive sites in enzymes, and the protective effects of thiol groups against radiation damage of living cells.
His first paper, coauthored with Arthur V. Tobolsky, on "Reaction of Propyl Disulfide with Decyl Mercaptan" was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1949.
His interest in chemical literature, as it was referred to prior to becoming a broader field of chemical information, dates back to the 1960s. In 1963, he published a survey on "Contributions to the Periodical Literature of Chemistry from United States Universities in 1955-1960". But it was actually in the late 1970s when George started to focus his attention on the various aspects of teaching chemical information and on the interpretation of some fundamental measurements, definitions, and symbols.
George's earliest paper presented at a CINF session at the ACS National Meeting in 1975 was on "Chemical Carcinogenesis: A Survey of Recent Literature". At the ACS meeting in 1979, he was a speaker at a symposium on "Teaching and Use of Chemical Information in Academia". That was followed by such topics as "A Pedagogically Oriented Analysis of Chemical Information and Its Sources" in 1982
and "A Classificatory Approach to the Retrieval of Chemical Substance Information" in 1984.
His other interests have centered on measurements and units, and again at an ACS meeting in 1980 he spoke on the interaction between science and politics using the metric system and SI units as a case study. He was never shy of stepping into a controversy, especially on the definitions and understanding of such notions as mole and chemical amount. His last published paper in the Journal of Chemical Education in 2003 discussed "Mole, Mole per Liter, and Molar", and he presented his last poster on "Two Unconventional Periodic Tables" at an ACS Meeting, also in 2003.
George had a keen analytical mind, a penchant for classifying chemical notions, often in a novel way, and a thorough knowledge of the derivation, definitions, and history of fundamental constants.
I had many personal and professional discussions with George over many years, including those during his brief stay in Columbus, Ohio, when he was a Visiting Scientist at Chemical Abstracts Abstracts Service (CAS). He studied then the conference proceedings, their coverage by CAS, and their usefulness as source of chemical information.
We will miss him.
George Gorin (1925-2004)
We were saddened to learn about the death of George Gorin on March 22, 2004. The official ACS obituary was published in the June 21, 2004, issue of Chemical & Engineering News, but did not mention George's interest in chemical information, especially in its teaching, nor in the history or philosophy of chemistry.
Gary Wiggins reacted quickly to that omission and published a brief review of George's activities in these areas in the Fall
2004 issue of the Chemical Information Bulletin. [Editor's note - this short obituary was posted on CHMINF-L and is archived at https://listserv.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iub.exe?A2=ind0406&L=chminf-l&P=R10532&I=-3 .]
We feel that we should provide a somewhat more detailed account of George's many contributions. It is worth repeating that George obtained an A.B degree from Brooklyn College in 1944, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University in 1947 and 1949, respectively. His academic career included a position as a research associate at Rutgers University, assistant professorship at the University of Oregon, and full professorship at the Oklahoma State University.
His areas of research included studies on the redox behavior and exchange reactions of thiols and disulfides, mercapto reactive sites in enzymes, and the protective effects of thiol groups against radiation damage of living cells.
His first paper, coauthored with Arthur V. Tobolsky, on "Reaction of Propyl Disulfide with Decyl Mercaptan" was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1949.
His interest in chemical literature, as it was referred to prior to becoming a broader field of chemical information, dates back to the 1960s. In 1963, he published a survey on "Contributions to the Periodical Literature of Chemistry from United States Universities in 1955-1960". But it was actually in the late 1970s when George started to focus his attention on the various aspects of teaching chemical information and on the interpretation of some fundamental measurements, definitions, and symbols.
George's earliest paper presented at a CINF session at the ACS National Meeting in 1975 was on "Chemical Carcinogenesis: A Survey of Recent Literature". At the ACS meeting in 1979, he was a speaker at a symposium on "Teaching and Use of Chemical Information in Academia". That was followed by such topics as "A Pedagogically Oriented Analysis of Chemical Information and Its Sources" in 1982
and "A Classificatory Approach to the Retrieval of Chemical Substance Information" in 1984.
His other interests have centered on measurements and units, and again at an ACS meeting in 1980 he spoke on the interaction between science and politics using the metric system and SI units as a case study. He was never shy of stepping into a controversy, especially on the definitions and understanding of such notions as mole and chemical amount. His last published paper in the Journal of Chemical Education in 2003 discussed "Mole, Mole per Liter, and Molar", and he presented his last poster on "Two Unconventional Periodic Tables" at an ACS Meeting, also in 2003.
George had a keen analytical mind, a penchant for classifying chemical notions, often in a novel way, and a thorough knowledge of the derivation, definitions, and history of fundamental constants.
I had many personal and professional discussions with George over many years, including those during his brief stay in Columbus, Ohio, when he was a Visiting Scientist at Chemical Abstracts Abstracts Service (CAS). He studied then the conference proceedings, their coverage by CAS, and their usefulness as source of chemical information.
We will miss him.
CINF People in the News
Bob
Buntrock
After 5 years "back home" in Minnesota, Bob and Gloria Buntrock decided to leave extended family and friends move to Orono, Maine to be near our daughter, son-in-law, and 2 small grandsons. We're currently renting a house from friends until our new house is completed, hopefully in early November.
We have 2 acres, in town, wooded, backing onto a small brook and the Orono Land Trust trail system. We're a mile from our daughter and downtown Orono and 1.5 miles from the University of Maine. We're looking forward to living in town again, close to family. In the same town as a University is great too, including colleagues, a research library, cultural events, and, of course, Black Bear athletics including season tickets to hockey.
Re: Buntrock Associates, Inc., we're still in business. Gloria is fully retired from Braille transcribing and training and I still have a few
information customers left. I had planned to attend the Philadelphia ACS meeting, but we were in the process of driving from MN to ME. Hopefully,I'll be able to attend some National meetings in the future.
New address: 16 Willow Drive, Orono, ME 04473
E-mail - buntrock2@earthlink.net
Patricia Kirkwood
Congratulations and best of luck to Patricia Kirkwood who was appointed Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics Librarian at the University of Arkansas. She will assume the position on November 3 at the rank of Associate Professor.
After 5 years "back home" in Minnesota, Bob and Gloria Buntrock decided to leave extended family and friends move to Orono, Maine to be near our daughter, son-in-law, and 2 small grandsons. We're currently renting a house from friends until our new house is completed, hopefully in early November.
We have 2 acres, in town, wooded, backing onto a small brook and the Orono Land Trust trail system. We're a mile from our daughter and downtown Orono and 1.5 miles from the University of Maine. We're looking forward to living in town again, close to family. In the same town as a University is great too, including colleagues, a research library, cultural events, and, of course, Black Bear athletics including season tickets to hockey.
Re: Buntrock Associates, Inc., we're still in business. Gloria is fully retired from Braille transcribing and training and I still have a few
information customers left. I had planned to attend the Philadelphia ACS meeting, but we were in the process of driving from MN to ME. Hopefully,I'll be able to attend some National meetings in the future.
New address: 16 Willow Drive, Orono, ME 04473
E-mail - buntrock2@earthlink.net
Patricia Kirkwood
Congratulations and best of luck to Patricia Kirkwood who was appointed Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics Librarian at the University of Arkansas. She will assume the position on November 3 at the rank of Associate Professor.