MyMol: a web-oriented molecular database as a simple strategy to transform chemical data into chemical information

Modern chemistry techniques and practices allow for the generation of a vast number of compounds and an even greater amount of data. As a result, one of the biggest challenges facing chemists today is cataloging all of the available information so they can analyze and learn from it. The new field of chemoinformatics provides an invaluable tool in these efforts. Chemoinformatics refers to the building of electronic databases of the chemical and biological properties and effects of large numbers of chemical compounds. These databases allow graphic and other visual information about chemical structures to be directly linked with the very large amount of both raw and processed data provided by medicinal, pharmaceutical, and other fields of research. In the present study, we decided to develop a simple web-oriented tool to transform chemical (structural) data into chemical information. MyMol is an interactive searchable database implemented by using in tandem PHP and MySQL.

Taking advantage of our molecular modeling resources to help build chemical libraries and databases, we are turning to chemoinformatics to allow researchers from many different disciplines across our department including synthetic chemists, medicinal chemists, pharmacologists, and biochemists to cooperate by searching, sharing, and viewing this accumulation of graphic and descriptive information. We are hoping to use chemoinformatic databases to allow the mining of very large datasets of chemical and biological information to look for new drug leads or drug design ideas, thereby speeding the discovery and development of new drug candidates.