CAS Enhances SciFinder® to Increase Productivity

Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), the world’s authority for chemical information, announced significant improvements to SciFinder, the choice for chemistry research™. The latest enhancements improve evaluation of reaction answer sets and allow easier collaboration with other SciFinder users.

Scientists can now group reactions in answer sets according to more than 500 commonly known reaction types, e.g. reduction of nitro compounds to amines. This feature will help in quickly examining the diversity of a large set of reactions. The feature organizes reactions the way chemists think, so synthetic options are apparent more quickly.

CAS also introduces a sharing feature for SciPlanner™, the interactive workspace in SciFinder that enables scientists to more quickly identify synthesis options. New SciPlanner import/export options make collaboration easier than ever by letting scientists share their workspace with other SciFinder users.

This update follows the progression of steady enhancements to SciFinder. In December 2011, CAS added substance relevance ranking and bioactivity and target indicator features to SciFinder to help chemists and biologists quickly access the information they need most. In February 2012, one-click access to commercial chemical source pricing and availability information enabled scientists to go directly from a substance search to a purchasing decision at the supplier’s site. Just two months later, SciFinder debuted features that improve search convenience, including searching of substance properties, converting CAS Registry Numbers® to structures, and previewing substance and reference answer sets with the in-context Quick View window.

CAS has also announced that SciFinder will be updated with nearly 200,000 additional experimental NMR spectra in the coming weeks. These experimental data will help scientists better characterize and identify substances.

“While we have a long tradition of enhancing SciFinder to meet the evolving needs of scientists, we also know that what sets SciFinder apart is the unparalleled content analyzed and curated by CAS’ global team of scientists with industry–leading timeliness,” said Chris McCue, vice president of marketing at CAS. “CAS covers more patent authorities than any other scientific information provider, and since 70% of new substances found in the literature are from patents, we are investing in new ways to present and manage substance and reaction information in SciFinder.”