Redefining Cheminformatics with Intuitive Collaborative Mobile Apps
Open Access
- 4 July 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Molecular Informatics
- Vol. 31 (8), 569-584
- https://doi.org/10.1002/minf.201200010
Abstract
The proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers has recently been extended to include a growing ecosystem of increasingly sophisticated chemistry software packages, commonly known as apps. The capabilities that these apps can offer to the practicing chemist are approaching those of conventional desktop-based software, but apps tend to be focused on a relatively small range of tasks. To overcome this, chemistry apps must be able to seamlessly transfer data to other apps, and through the network to other devices, as well as to other platforms, such as desktops and servers, using documented file formats and protocols whenever possible. This article describes the development and state of the art with regard to chemistry-aware apps that make use of facile data interchange, and some of the scenarios in which these apps can be inserted into a chemical information workflow to increase productivity. A selection of contemporary apps is used to demonstrate their relevance to pharmaceutical research. Mobile apps represent a novel approach for delivery of cheminformatics tools to chemists and other scientists, and indications suggest that mobile devices represent a disruptive technology for drug discovery, as they have been to many other industries.Keywords
Funding Information
- Funded Access
This publication has 48 references indexed in Scilit:
- AUDocker LE: A GUI for virtual screening with AUTODOCK VinaBMC Research Notes, 2011
- Online chemical modeling environment (OCHEM): web platform for data storage, model development and publishing of chemical informationJournal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design, 2011
- Chembench: a cheminformatics workbenchBioinformatics, 2010
- Collaborative development of predictive toxicology applicationsJournal of Cheminformatics, 2010
- Use of historic metabolic biotransformation data as a means of anticipating metabolic sites using MetaPrint2D and BioclipseBMC Bioinformatics, 2010
- Towards interoperable and reproducible QSAR analyses: Exchange of datasetsJournal of Cheminformatics, 2010
- Trust, But Verify: On the Importance of Chemical Structure Curation in Cheminformatics and QSAR Modeling ResearchJournal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 2010
- An overview of the PubChem BioAssay resourceNucleic Acids Research, 2009
- FAF-Drugs2: Free ADME/tox filtering tool to assist drug discovery and chemical biology projectsBMC Bioinformatics, 2008
- ChEBI: a database and ontology for chemical entities of biological interestNucleic Acids Research, 2007