Blog CSD

Despite pandemic-related challenges, in 2020 the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) approved 53 new therapeutics, according to a recent "News & Analysis" article in Nature. That’s an increase over the 48 therapeutics approved in 2019, and it falls just behind 2018’s all-time record of 59. Small molecules make up 38 of 53, and they are expected to constitute many of the highest selling new therapeutics.

Here we highlight a paper using the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) and a novel approach to calculating dynamic disorder to identify the major characteristics of structures representing a low degree of dynamic disorder. This is part of our series highlighting examples of​​ the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) tools in action by scientists around the world.

Here we spotlight a recent publication which shows how CSD data supported a team from Novartis and NanoMEGA to analyse a metastable form of the antihistamine drug Loratadine. Part of our series highlighting examples of our data and software in use around the world.

Here we highlight one paper which used fragment based screening to identify new inhibitors with improved pharmacokinetic properties. Part of our series highlighting examples of CCDC tools in action by scientists around the world.

Here we highlight a paper which employed SMILES to mine the Cambridge Structural Database to identify hydrate-anhydrate pairs. Part of our series highlighting examples of CCDC tools in action by scientists around the world.

Last week, the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) has passed a total of 1,100,000 unique crystal structures within the database, marking the first milestone on the way to 2,000,000 structures! It wasn’t too long ago we were celebrating reaching 1 million structures (just 20 months!) and despite a year of global challenges and difficulties we are excited to start 2021 with this new achievement. A massive thank you to everyone who has contributed, not only to this feat, but to the continual growth of the CSD.

The past year has pushed the importance and challenges of scientific discovery into the spotlight. What lessons can we learn, and what changes can scientific leaders make going forward? In a virtual "fireside chat" the leaders of the CCDC and the RCSB PDB explored this topic, and we share some key learnings from the discussion here.

We started 2020 with a lot of excitement and expectations. After all, we had just achieved a major milestone with the millionth structure in our database, and an additional 60K entries by the end of 2019. We were all geared up with new strategies and plans to tackle the data that would start pouring in in 2020. And yes, we did have a lovely busy start. Little did we know 2020 had plans which none of us could have fathomed. By early March it was "crystal" clear that 2020 had made up its mind to make things difficult for all of us!

It’s a new year and we are planning our CSD Improvements for the upcoming year. Some of us may have already broken our resolutions (oops), but here at CCDC we have resolved to keep improving the database in 2021.

As we kick off the new year, we are delighted to announce the launch of a new workflow with the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) aimed at improving the accessibility of structural data. This initiative forms part of our overall strategy to improve structural data publication processes and ensure data is seamlessly made available through the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). ACS Publications are a key partner for us and the workflow has already been successfully adopted by Crystal Growth & Design,  Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Letters, Organometallics and more recently The Journal of Organic Chemistry (JOC).