ChemSpider Blog

Scifoo is just a few weeks away and I was reviewing the list of attendees this evening to see who I would be sharing space with.

I am especially looking forward to spening time with Andrew Lang, one of the brains behind the Spectral Game. We’ve spoken on the phone, exchanged many emails and worked on a couple of projects together. But we get to meet at SciFoo!

Last time I was at SciFoo I spent time talking with Cameron Neylon and JC Bradley about Open Notebook Science. At that time I had lots of ideas about what we could do to support Open Notebook Science. We actually have done quite well but at that time we were severely resource constrained. Things are a little different now we have been acquired by the RSC and I am looking forward to talking about what’s necessary and possible now.

Nicko Goncharoff from SureChem will be there. Nicko and I have spent a lot of time together over the past few years, mostly by phone and over email as we worked to integrate SureChem into ChemSpider and use their software development kit under our ChemMantis semantic chemistry markup tool. It’s always good to see him.

Other people I hope to spend some time talking to: Peter Murray Rust from the university of Cambridge, Timo Hannay, Alf Eaton and Terry Sheppard from the Nature Publishing Group and Theodore Gray.

I have set up a LinkedIn Users and Advisors group today and welcome any LinkedIn users interested in ChemSpider to join the group and stay informed about our activities on ChemSpider. I hope that it also provides a useful environment for discussion and collaboration around ChemSpider.

The ChemSpider LinkedIn Group can be accessed here.

Oh boy do we have a lot of things to do with ChemSpider. Not only now, while shifting ChemSpider to the RSC infrastructure, but in the future as we do the work necessary to make ChemSpider the primary internet resource for structure-based chemistry. We don’t have small eyes in terms of what we want to deliver to the community. Far from it…we have big eyes and big ideas regarding what is possible and even, in most cases, how to get there. What is clear is that we need the appropriate skill sets to make it happen. At present all ChemSpider platform development work is done by our team over here in the US. We are looking to add a team member into the RSC Offices in Cambridge. We’re looking for someone with established Cheminformatics skills to work with us. They need to have an established track record in working in the field of Cheminformatics, have a deep knowledge of handling chemical structures, experience in working with web-based systems and, of course, have a big appetite for making a difference and wants to work with a fast-moving team. If you’re interested in talking with us about the opportunity ping me at antonyDOTwilliamsATchemspiderDOTcom.