Newsletter #6 | 2009
Reaxys Advisory Board met in Montreux, Switzerland 20-22 April 2009
Following discussions during the Beilstein Advisory Board meeting in New Orleans in April 2008, the decision was taken to rename the board and refocus its remit to reflect better the strategic direction taken by Elsevier for its chemistry database portfolio. As a result, the Reaxys Advisory Board, co-chaired by Dr Graeme Robertson, SienaBiotech, Siena, Italy and Phil Mestecky, Elsevier Properties SA, Neuchâtel, Switzerland met to discuss in detail the latest developments on Reaxys and the future strategic direction of the CrossFire portfolio as a whole.
The members of the Reaxys Advisory Board are:
Dr. James E. Audia, Eli Lilly, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Prof. A.G.M. Barrett, Imperial College, London, UK
Prof. Dr. Erick M. Carreira, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Prof. Robert H. Grubbs, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Dr. Torsten Hoffmann, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Basel, Switzerland
Prof. Dr. Horst Kunz, University of Mainz, Germany
Dr. Ge Li, WuXi PharmaTech, Shanghai, China
Dr. K. Barry Sharpless, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
Prof. Barry M. Trost, University of Stanford, CA, USA
Prof. Henry N. C. Wong, Chinese University Hong Kong, China
The broad range of expertise represented by this distinguished board has been assembled to represent the views of academic and corporate chemists from around the world and provide us with a tremendous resource of experience and expertise.
During the meeting in Switzerland, the board discussed:
- Progress to-date following the launch of Reaxys in January 2009
- New developments for Reaxys currently in the pipeline for 2009
- Current trends and future directions for the portfolio both for Academic and Government researchers as well as those from industry
Overall, during the meeting the board clearly expressed their support and approval for the strategic direction of Reaxys and of the speed of progress over the last 12 months. As always, they were not afraid to share their strong opinions and clear recommendations for where enhancements need to be made and how the strategy should develop moving forward. All present acknowledged that open and frank exchange of views is crucial to ensuring that Reaxys continues to meet the needs of chemists from both industry and academia and that the Reaxys Advisory Board is an excellent platform for discussions of this sort.
Exporting reaction, substance and citation data just got easier
CrossFire users will already be aware of the export capabilities within within the CrossFire database suite. Results can be exported to various target formats, including SD/RD, XML and RIS (EndNote/Reference Manager) files. Clicking "Export Hits" in the button bar in CrossFire opens a menu with different export settings depending on the hitset context.
From here you need to define the format and content of the new export file, including file type, target application behaviour and data fields you wish to be included. It is a multi-step procedure to formulate the exported information in a format suitable to your requirements.
With Reaxys, this process becomes much easier. Exporting hitsets in Reaxys is possible through the "output" feature. This is available on each of the results screens - you can export any type of hitset (reactions, substances and bibliographic data) in your desired format. In the substance details table you simply need to click "select data" to choose the type of property you wish to export.
Once you have selected the format and data fields you wish to export a simple click on OK launches the export. This means you can print summaries to PDF, share your results with colleagues, use the data in Excel for further manipulation and much, much more.
CrossFire and Reaxys at ACS Spring - your reactions
The ACS Spring National Meeting in March provided a valuable opportunity for CrossFire users to see and use Reaxys for themselves. Andreas Kling, medicinal chemist (and lucky iPod winner from the Reaxys quiz), had this to say about Reaxys; "With regards to Reaxys, my impression was that I liked the application quite a bit. I used it during the ACS to find some data for research topics which came to mind. Considering that I am an 'old' CrossFire user, my impression was that the application is easy to use and seems to be constructed on a 'thought-through' way, enabling users to make use of the data in a more systematic and clearly-laid out way compared to CrossFire."
What are your thoughts on CrossFire and Reaxys? Don't hesitate to get in touch
What does Reaxys have which CrossFire doesn't?
As well as building on and enhancing features from the CrossFire Databases, Reaxys contains many aspects designed to improve output and minimize work overload. One such a feature is the commercial availability linking.
In Reaxys two sources are available for chemical supplier information, the free service offered by eMolecules and Symyx's ACD (Available Chemicals Directory). Both vendors have provided their compounds for matching them with Reaxys and as a result, users will find corresponding icons shown below a displayed structure if a match is found.
Clicking on the icon opens a new browser window which will then present the selected structure, either on the eMolecules website, or it will open the corresponding compound in ACD. You need the appropriate license in order to use ACD.
The integration of these two systems in Reaxys serves your needs related to finding chemical sourcing information and it helps in making the right decision about which compounds to synthesize and which compounds to buy.
Learn more about Reaxys - visit www.info.reaxys.com
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