February 15, 2018 (Vol. 38, No. 4)

URL:
http://www.crystallography.net

Rating:
Strong Points: Vast collection of structures, search by structure feature
Weak Points: Cannot browse by compound name

Summary:

No, COD is not a go-to resource for all things fish-related. (Alas.) Rather, COD stands for the Crystallography Open Database, an online resource developed at the University of Cambridge that is admittedly still pretty neat. All of the crystal structures contained within COD are freely accessible and include organic, inorganic, and metal-organic compounds, as well as minerals. (For the fans of nucleic acids and proteins out there, I’m sorry to report that you’ll have to go elsewhere for your biopolymers fix.) Interestingly, one is unable to browse the collection of close to 400,000 structures by the compound’s name. Rather, site visitors must browse by the publication in which the structure was published or by the date of publication. However, site visitors can search the database, and savvy chemists can even search by drawing the chemical structure.

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