SciFinder Scholar® is a Z39.50 Windows-based interface that provides easy access to the rich and diverse scientific information contained in the CAS databases including Chemical Abstracts from 1907 onwards. SFS is an elegant search interface to six core chemical-related databases. Five of these databases are produced by CAS itself

1. SciFinder® and its utilities
Presented By:
Alichy Sowmya
18PIM2855
2nd Semester M.S(Pharm.)
NIPER S.A.S Nagar

2. Introduction:
• SciFinder Scholar® is a Z39.50 Windows-based interface that provides easy access
to the rich and diverse scientific information contained in the CAS databases
including Chemical Abstracts from 1907 onwards
• SciFinder Scholar® is a version of the software only available to academic
institutions. The software available to other users is called SciFinder Scholar®, and
this is identical to SciFinder Scholar® except for the inclusion of some additional
features
• It retrieves information contained in the databases produced by the CAS as well as
MEDLINE
• All the records are in English

3. Databases:
SFS is an elegant search interface to six core chemical-related databases. Five of
these databases are produced by CAS itself:
• CAplus, the main Chemical Abstracts literature database of over 23 million
references. CAplus includes in-process records, over 21 000 pre-1907 references,
and document types such as letters to the editor that do not appear in print
Chemical Abstracts
• CAS REGISTRY, the substance database of over 27 million organic and inorganic
substances and 57 million biosequences
• CASREACT, providing access to over 10 million reactions from the journal literature
and patents

4. Databases:
• CHEMLIST, the regulatory chemicals database of over 238 640 compounds compiled
from an extensive group of state, national, and international regulatory lists and
inventories
• CHEMCATS, listing suppliers of commercially available chemicals worldwide
• The sixth file, added in 1999, is the complete National Library of Medicine's (NLM)
MEDLINE database back to 1950 containing over 15 million references. MEDLINE
includes all but approximately 1% of the citations in PubMed, NLM's freely available
Web database. All six files are also searchable via a number of Web interfaces on
the STN International system. STN is a cooperative effort of CAS (U. S. A.), FIZ
Karlsruhe (Germany), and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation

5. Features:
• Easy-to-use links between compound, reaction, regulatory, commercial supplier,
and literature information
• Facile access to electronic full-text versions of references via ChemPort, an
Internet-based linking system
• Substructure searching of reactions and substances
• A large and growing set of experimental and calculated physical property values
• Extensive coverage of life sciences, physics, materials science, and engineering
• SciFinder Scholar was designed to be an intuitive system, requiring little training to
quickly produce relevant results

6. 1991
• CAS began to explore the idea of a new desktop research tool
1993
• The first prototype was created, and α testing at five sites was performed
1994
• SciFinder (commercial version) was introduced for the first time at Online/CD-ROM ‘94
• It had three simple search options; three research functions; “Explore” for author, chemical substance including structures, and topic searches; and “browse table of contents” and “keep me posted” current awareness
1996
• SciFinder version 2 is released with reaction substructure searching, access to supplier information (CHEMCATS), and links to the CAS Document Detective Service
1997
• SciFinder version 3 is released, in which a substructure search module was added
• SciFinder Scholar version 1 is released. It has four simple search options: chemical substance or reaction, research topic, author name, and document identifier
1998
• SciFinder version 4 is released including regulatory information (CHEMLIST) and ChemPort linking to full-text articles
• SciFinder Scholar version 2 is released, which links to full-text articles added via ChemPort
1999
• The SciFinder Scholar substructure search module is released
• SciFinder version 5 is released, which includes MEDLINE, a full reaction query tool, and patent family information
• SciFinder Scholar version 3 is released, which includes a full reaction query tool
2000
• SciFinder 2000 is released, which includes company name searching, a Panorama analysis tool, and functional group transformations
• SciFinder Scholar 2000 is released
2001
• SciFinder products can now access 1947 to present Chemical Abstracts records
• SciFinder 2001 is released; biosequence searching, calculated property data, reaction information back to 1974
• SciFinder Scholar 2001 is released, which includes links to cited and citing references, reaction information back to 1974
2002
• SciFinder products can now access 1907 to present Chemical Abstracts records
• SciFinder 2002 is released. It includes stereospecific structure searching, experimental property data, and reactions back to 1907
2005
• SciFinder 2006 for Windows is released. It includes structure similarity, variable point of attachment, and repeating group for structure searching. Duplicate citation removal, find specific reference, and main menu redesign are
three more new features. Nearly 14 000 records dating from 1879 to 1900 were added to CAplus from the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Journal of Physical Chemistry, including patents and other journal articles
abstracted in these two publications
• The native MAC OS X version of SciFinder 2006 is released
History:

7. Use of SciFinder Scholar®:
• SciFinder Scholar® allows access to databases from the Chemical Abstracts Service
(CAS) and from the US National Library of Medicine, thus opening the largest
compound and literature collection publicly available
• The structures of over 18 million substances and over 15 million sequences may be
accessed using various 2D query types, including substructure searches
• No 3D queries are currently possible, although 3D structures may be viewed, and 2D
structures may be imported into alternative software allowing 3D analysis
• In addition to its size, a feature of the CAS database is the availability of calculated
physical properties
• Further, through SciFinder Scholar® there are many possibilities for query
refinement and query analysis, and for direct access to available literature on a
particular

8. How SciFinder Scholar® can be used in drug discovery ?
• Once the initial query has been searched, answers from the CAS substance database
(REGISTRY) are presented and references may be obtained for these substances in
CAPLUS (the bibliographic database from CAS) and MEDLINE (the bibliographic
database from the US National Library of Medicine)
• The exact number of answers retrieved with any query will increase every day, as
new compounds are added to the databases
• The options for filtering the results from the initial queries are of two broad types,
Refine and Analyse, and the main difference is that the former requires a specific
input while the latter tabulates alternatives from which choices may then be made
• The outcomes from Refine or Analyse operations are new substance answer sets
which may be further analysed or refined, or for which references may be obtained

9. How SciFinder Scholar® can be used for drug discovery ?
• Apart from refinement by structure, answers may also be refined by commercial
availability. Thus, in SciFinder Scholar®, REGISTRY is linked to the database
CHEMCATS® which contains over 900,000 commercially available substances
• Finally, answers may be refined by property data. The physical property values are
calculated using CAS connection tables and software developed by Advanced
Chemistry Development, and information on the algorithms used for the
calculations is available . The record also contains a link to the 3D model which also
is built from the structure connection tables
• The eight calculated properties are pKa, number of hydrogen donors and hydrogen
acceptors, freely rotatable bonds, molecular weight, molar solubility, log P and log
D. This allows application of Lipinski’s “Rule of Five” as a filter to remove
compounds that are unlikely to be successful drug candidates

10. How SciFinder Scholar® can be used for drug discovery ?
• Currently, calculated physical properties are available for over 4.5 million
substances, and those include substances which have been identified with a
biological role by CAS and substances which are commercially available. Over 8
million additional substances will be added soon

11. Example:
• To explore the research topic “peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors”
(PPARs). The results from this search yield many patents and journal articles
concerned with this subject. SciFinder analysis tools allow the user to examine
across the entire answer set trends or identify companies or scientists that have
published literature on this topic

12. Example:
• For example, a researcher very quickly can identify Merck, Eli Lilly, Kyorin
Pharmaceutical Co., and Novo Nordisk as being prolific publishers on this research
topic as well as Washington University, Osaka University, and Harvard Medical School
over the last 3 years
• SciFinder also identifies the top authors in terms of number of publications on this
topic during the last 3 years. The top 3 authors were Kadowaki Takashi, Bart Staels
and Johan Auwerx. These authors can subsequently be searched individually, and
their references refined by topic
• It is also possible to identify references that are cited in the papers published by
one or more of these authors or find a key paper and identify who has referenced it
as a source

13. Example:
• For example, an early paper co-authored by Bart Staels, PPAR-a and PPAR-g
activators induce cholesterol removal from human macrophage foam cells through
stimulation of the ABCA1 pathway, Nature Medicine (New York) (2001), 7(1), 53-58,
is cited by over 247 journal references, of which one is an editorial, two are online
computer references, 7 are conference proceedings, and 131 are reviews
• A search on “peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs)” during the last 3
years was refined by the concept “agonists,” and the resulting Panorama display
presents the categories “Proteins & Peptides” in relation to “Animal Pathology,”

14. Example:

15. Thus SciFinder® is an important part of the information task, permitting researchers
without training in information retrieval to ask and answer questions in an almost
conversational manner.