InChI News
Please join us for an online update on InChI, where we’ll be covering current status and future roadmap for the standard. This is being held ahead of the Trust’s Board Meeting which will be considering our future priorities for supporting InChI activities - all feedback welcome. In the update we will be covering:
Technical Update
InChI Subcommittee / Working Group Update
InChI Trust Organisational Update
IUPAC CPCDS Update
Register:
trust January 7, 2024: InChI Project Update for 2024In 2021-2023, the InChI Trust decided to significantly invest in creating additional roles for outreach and technical direction – spending from our reserves to accelerate InChI development and transition this to a more open and transparent model. This was followed by the sad passing of Igor Pletnev, our primary developer, in late 2021.
Since then, much progress has been made transitioning the existing code to a GitHub environment, developing additional understanding of the code, fixing bugs and creating testing protocols that build on previous practice. This work has taken place at RWTH Aachen, supported by the NFDI4Chem project and the Volkswagen Foundation. The next ‘new’ version of InChI – rebuilding of the current version 1.06, cleaned-up and with additional bugfixes, is in testing and will be available for the IUPAC InChI Subcommittee and CPCDS to approve soon. The code now lives on GitHub – we are also working through the governance needed for this new development model aligned with IUPAC.
In parallel, much has been achieved by the Working Groups and the IUPAC InChI Subcommittee in agreeing the scientific requirements for extensions of the standard, and for implementation investigations to inform our technical roadmap.
The roadmap below covers both extensions to core InChI, and to InChI applications (RInChI, MInChI, the web demo and the resolver). Additional Working Groups are still considering their requirements.
In addition to the development resource at RWTH Aachen, we will also be supported by cheminformatics expertise from a new position at the Beilstein Institute. The InChI Trust is very grateful for this in-kind support from these organisations, and partnerships such as these are a fantastic way to achieve step-changes in speed of delivery, building on the core financial support from the Trust’s members, and input from IUPAC’s expert volunteers.
Having drawn on our reserves to catalyse these activities, the Trust now needs to reduce its annual spend so this is covered by core revenue. Given the focus on the technical roadmap for 2024-2025, we have prioritised our support towards technical oversight, coordination and planning. As a result we are reducing the support for roles in other areas. This refocus will enable us to deliver enhancements to InChI that have been long desired by our user community and grow partnerships and member contributions that will support further scientific activities to push the standard forward.
general, trust, release, code, chemistry October 23, 2023: InChI Poster at the CODATA Meeting in Salzburg Oct 23-26, 2023Gerd Blanke presented a poster at the CODATA Meeting in Salzburg, Austria, the week of October 23, 2023. He highlighted new additions to the InChI Standard that are in development and coming soon in the next release. Poster here.
release September 6, 2023: Beilstein Institute Announces InChI Focused Job OpeningThe Beilstein Institute is looking to extend their current portfolio of open science projects by collaborating with the InChI Trust and they have created a new position at the Beilstein Institute focused on InChI. This is a unique opportunity to directly contribute to an international project by working in conjunction with the InChI community while contributing to the goals of a long-standing non-profit organization.
For more information go to https://www.beilstein-institut.de/en/about-us/jobs/
Deadline was November 15th 2023
general July 26, 2023: InChI Trust Aug 12, 2023 Seminar AgendaThe InChI Trust agenda for the seminar on Aug 12, 2023 is available at https://www.inchi-trust.org/inchi-seminar-12-aug-2023/
trust July 25, 2023: InChI Workshop on Inorganic StereochemistryA workshop on InChI and inorganic stereochemistry was held in Aachen Germany in May 2023. A summary of that meeting is now included here along with links to more details on the discussion and decisions. Learn more about the Inorganics Working Group at: https://www.inchi-trust.org/inorganics/
code March 27, 2023: InChI Mentioned in C&EN ArticleInChI is mentioned by Greta Heydenrych, Executive Director of IUPAC, in an interview in today's issue of C&E News. Dr. Heydenrych was asked what sectors of chemistry are precipitating the most changes? She replied "materials science, supramolecular chemistry . . . and our work on establishing digital representations of compounds, such as that with the InChI [International Chemical Identifier] Trust, and development of other digital standards . . .”
trust March 2, 2023: Sonia Herres-Pawlis Appointed to the InChI-Trust Board of DirectorsCongratulations Sonia Herres-Pawlis who joins the InChI-Trust Board of Directors. Dr Herres-Pawlis is on the faculty at Aachen University. Her research interests include Oxidation and Polymerisation Catalysis, Bioinorganic Chem, Green Chem and general Inorganic Chem.
trust December 19, 2022: Planning InChI Activities for 2023We are planning to participate in several conferences in 2023 as well as hold at least two events. We expect to participate in BioIT World sessions, both ACS meetings and probably another one or two. In addition we are planning a mostly in-person event in Cambridge UK in the spring and adjacent to the San Francisco ACS meeting in August. Details will follow early next year.
Happy New Year!
trust August 25, 2022: InChI in the Wild: Celebrating Over 20 years of InChI Development in Memory of InChI Developer Igor PletnevThis symposium honoring the many contributions of Igor Pletnev to the InChI project was held as part of the ACS Chicago 2022 meeting on Sunday August 21. Also covered were many research and development efforts to extend the InChI standard into additional areas of chemistry. The slide decks for these presentations are now available here.
trust, chemistry