Sharing chemical information safely

Share and share alike

by David Bradley

Can researchers share relevant information on chemical compounds so they can test drug-discovery models and toxicity-prediction programmes without revealing structures to rivals? A meeting this month of two divisions of the American Chemical Society - Chemical Information (CINF) and Computers in Chemistry (COMP) in San Diego - aims to address this controversial question (ACS National Meeting).

"The pharmaceutical industry and academia want to share information, but proprietary and legal considerations mean that this cannot be done easily if there is a risk that chemical-structure information might be released," says Christopher Lipinski, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Pfizer Global R&D and co-chairman of the meeting. "We need an uncrackable system that lets information-poor academia gain information for testing its models and techniques, and allows industry to tap into academic expertise without compromising its intellectual property....read my complete article in Nature


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