Scilligence and Elsevier Collaborate to Enhance Lab Efficiency

The first-ever integration between an electronic lab notebook (ELN) and a chemistry research database will rely on FAIR principles to improve experiments and reduce manual curation

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Elsevier

Apr 12, 2019, 10:20 ET

NEW YORK, April 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Scilligence, a provider of cheminformatics and bioinformatics solutions for the life sciences industry, has selected Elsevier's Reaxys to help chemists improve efficiency and productivity.

Chemists often begin their work by following a manual process, searching for information and transferring that information between platforms, then typing in experimental details from references – all before going into the lab to run an experiment. This cumbersome process can introduce errors at multiple points. The ELN-Reaxys integration will allow chemists to search Reaxys for reactions of interest via the Scilligence electronic lab notebook (ELN) and retrieve appropriate reaction information and relevant references into their ELN. This will eliminate the need to copy/paste or draw manually, helping chemists streamline this process, maintain greater levels of transparency and reduce time and errors.

"ELNs are designed to capture data, but they are not the most efficient tools when it comes to searching for data and experiments," said Jinbo Lee, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder, Scilligence. "With data spread out across multiple solutions, it's very difficult to compare against what is in the literature. By integrating Scilligence ELN's informatics capabilities with Reaxys' data, we can increase efficiency, eliminate the black box of analysis, and reduce the manual curation of past experiments."

Further, making data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) is an industry-wide expectation. Elsevier is at the forefront of the adoption of FAIR principles, with several Elsevier officials participating in the framework's original committee.

"We are in an era of unprecedented opportunities to translate breakthrough science discoveries into therapies," said Ivan Krstic, Director, Chemistry Solutions, Elsevier, the information analytics company specializing in science and health. "Still, IT and data issues present imposing barriers. Many organizations have data siloed in different departments, solutions and formats, and every time chemists want to add a new component, tool or data set to their review they can waste a lot of time normalizing that data to make it usable. That's why it's essential, and beneficial, for ELNs to integrate seamlessly with reliable data sources, to eliminate inefficient processes and empower chemists to answer their most pressing questions."

The Scilligence-Reaxys alliance will, in the near future, lower even further the barriers between these silos. The Unified Data Model (UDM) data format maintained by the Pistoia Alliance will be established as the standard data exchange format for reactions between the Scilligence ELN and Reaxys. Hence, chemists will be able to transfer data from Reaxys into the Scilligence ELN. Also, data exported from the Scilligence ELN can be incorporated into Reaxys, reducing the need for the user to establish data transformation processes.

Reaxys retrieves literature, compound properties and chemical reaction data faster than any other solution and, together with Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry (RMC), offers pharma companies a 'one stop shop' chemistry ecosystem thanks to its integration capabilities, innovative APIs, and bioactivity data. The Reaxys platform contains over 240 years of unparalleled chemistry content, including: 119 million organic, inorganic and organometallic compounds, 46 million chemical reactions, 500 million published experimental facts, 16,000 chemistry related periodicals, Asian, European and US patents, and six indexing sources for a cross-disciplinary view of chemistry. RMC offers access to data from a vast repository of peer-reviewed journal articles and patents and is interoperable with Reaxys, https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/reaxys.

About Scilligence

Scilligence is a leading innovator of web-based cheminformatics and bioinformatics solutions designed for any device, browser, and platform. Scilligence's tools enhance the knowledge sharing and productivity of researchers in the discovery and development of small molecule and biologic therapeutics.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps scientists and clinicians to find new answers, reshape human knowledge, and tackle the most urgent human crises. For 140 years, we have partnered with the research world to curate and verify scientific knowledge. Today, we're committed to bringing that rigor to a new generation of platforms. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 39,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com