Did you know that if you have access to CrossFire you could already have access to Reaxys?

Company/Campus Wide Access (CWA) license for the three CrossFire Databases not only gives you access to everything which CrossFire has to offer - covering all aspects of preparative chemistry- but it also gives you access to the same data in Reaxys. Reaxys is intuitive, web-based and has additional features all designed to support the optimization of synthetic processes.

Visit http://www.reaxys.com - if you don't have access straight away ask your information department for the migration plan.

^ back to top

Searching the chemistry from journals and patents in one step

The CrossFire databases organize the searchable data using the principles of chemistry - rather than a bibliographic approach - which brings all the information for a chemical compound or reaction together into one record. This enables chemists in R&D to find identification data, like NMR spectra, from other publications than the one which published the reaction; additional analysis without the researcher having to search through and read unnecessary journals and publications.

The chemistry from the more recent patents is not available in CrossFire Beilstein, instead this data is housed in the Patent Chemistry Database (PCD). Using CrossFire Commander 7.1 researchers are able to search for reactions and data from both databases.

To do this, simply click on "Select Database" and select both databases:



As a result your query runs over both databases simultaneously, providing two results sets presented in two different windows - as shown below.



As PCD and CrossFire Beilstein are complementary, the content can be searched more efficiently if it is merged into one database and the results presented in one result set. This is available in Reaxys - the new workflow solution based on all three of the CrossFire databases. The below image shows both the patent information from PCD and the journal information from CrossFire Beilstein.



Reaxys combines the content of CrossFire Beilstein, CrossFire Gmelin and PCD and the data are standardized and harmonized. As with the CrossFire databases, chemistry is the organizing principle. It matches reaction variations from the same basic reaction into the same reaction record "Reaction dossier", independent as to whether these data come from journal or patent information.

The filters in Reaxys allow you to manage result sets of reactions or even compounds by their origin, by limiting to or excluding a publication type. With this, Reaxys makes your research more efficient, it brings the complementary data together and it removes the burden of manually pulling data together from the researcher.

Visit http://www.reaxys.com - as a CrossFire user you could already have access or visit the Reaxys information website for more information.

^ back to top

Free webinar registration update

It's your final chance to sign up for the remaining CrossFire webinars - check out the registration schedule here and register. Don't worry if you haven't yet had the chance to participate in one, the dedicated CrossFire customer care team is always on hand to answer your queries.

The CrossFire webinars will be replaced by Reaxys webinars - making the transition to Reaxys even smoother. These free webinars are run in the same way as the current CrossFire webinars - registration is available through the Reaxys info site. Alongside these dedicated webinars, an initial orientation webinar can be arranged at your convenience by emailing customer support.

^ back to top

Tips and Tricks - citation retrieval from hitsets

Do you know how to retrieve citations for several selected hits (but not the entire hitset)? Once you have run your search and you're in the results tab it is simple to retrieve citations, simply click the "Get" button. You could be either in the Grid View or the details view. To select only several hits you need to place a check mark in the upper left corner of each selected hit and select "View" then "Selected hits" only. Then you click "Get" and select "Get all related citations" and click next to All Reactions (or substances) in the current hitset.

Once again, in Reaxys the process of retrieving citations has been enhanced. Smart filters enable you to get exactly what you are looking for - whether sorted by journal or patent or more stringent criteria and as with CrossFire the citation results can be exported via the "Output" feature.

^ back to top

Grouping and sorting in the CrossFire databases and Reaxys

In the June 2008 edition of this newsletter you learnt about the new grouping and sorting functionality in CrossFire Commander. This feature is available in the results tab of Commander via the button "Sort/Group"


which opens a box in which you can switch between sorting and grouping

As was demonstrated in the June edition you need to know about this functionality to be able to benefit from it. In Reaxys analysis and ranking tools are clearly available at entry level.


The screenshot above shows a typical Reaxys reaction hitset. A search in Reaxys is done on the basis of an extremely large data source. To filter out the most relevant hits from large hitsets, Reaxys offers a variety of different filter criteria (as visible above, left, in the red box). You can limit the hitset (or exclude from it) by using yield ranges, reaction partners, reaction types, document type (journals/patents), authors/patent assignees, journal titles or publication year.

The intelligent filter techniques combine with the smart visualization tools (here a comparative tabular view) to make Reaxys a valuable aid in finding the most relevant hits from a comprehensive data source.

^ back to top

Multi-step reactions in Reaxys

The addition of multi-step reactions to CrossFire Beilstein has had many benefits, particularly in specific lab situations. For example, sometimes a single-step reaction with an extremely high yield uses a dangerous or hard-to-get catalyst or reagent, but a multi-step reaction with a commercially available reagent and an acceptable overall yield could prove more useful. Alternatively chemists working in natural product synthesis who need ten or more synthesis steps to produce a specific compound will appreciate seeing the whole n-step-process on a summary page and be able to compare different synthesis processes for one product.

These reactions have been loaded to Reaxys and enhanced with additional features to facilitate research. To see the multi-step reactions, you can use the "Filter by" function and limit your hitset to reactions with more than one step.



To see the full reaction scheme with all steps you need to click on the link "View Scheme" (see image above).



The multi-step reaction is then displayed in the synthesis planner - as shown above.

^ back to top