Here's your monthly update from the home of structural science. This month includes some exciting upcoming events, access to our recent customer webinar recording, a look at some heroes of the CSD, inspiring new research and more!
We hope you enjoy,
The CCDC team
Events to attend
2019 UGM - USA
October 17, Philadelphia
The UGM will cover product roadmaps, plans for consortia, discussions around machine learning in the acceleration of research and development, and will provide a forum for open discussions and feedback.
Join us for the Rational Solid Form Design & Development summit and be part of discussions on the latest advancements and computational tools in drug design and drug development
Our Japan UGM will provide Japanese users of our tools with updates on our product roadmap, the power of data and machine learning, as well as offering the opportunity to provide their feedback and suggestions for future developments.
Technology is driving change in life sciences R&D and Healthcare. The Pistoia Alliance 2019 Annual USA Conference enables members to come together to discuss important developments across the pharma and life science R&D value chain.
We recently hosted the first webinar in our series of 'What's Up Monthly Customer Updates'.
We covered a range of topics, from ultra large docking using GOLD, to top ten tips for using Mercury, as well as providing users the opportunity to give us their feedback. The webinar was well attended, and we would like to thank everyone that contributed to the discussions.
You can access a recording of the presentation below. Sign-up to our October webinar here.
In the year that the CSD hit one million structures we wanted to highlight and thank some of the most prolific contributors to the database. Read more about our CSD Heroes in our latest blog series.
Advancing pharmaceutical development through Digital design
In a new study published in Crystal Growth & Design, researchers from CCDC, in collaboration with the University of Leeds, Britest Limited, Pfizer and GSK, introduced a workflow that brings together existing and novel approaches in the assessment and prediction of particle properties important to the formulation and manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
The research aimed to provide resolutions at key decision points encountered during formulation design and manufacturing processes, to help reduce the high risk of failure associated with drug development.
Nanoparticles used to transport anti-cancer agent to cells
Scientists from the University of Cambridge have developed a platform that uses metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to deliver an anti-cancer agent, known as siRNA, to cells. Researchers used computational simulations to find a MOF with the perfect pore size to carry an siRNA molecule, and that would breakdown once inside a cell, releasing the siRNA to its target.
Researchers can change components of the MOF structure to create different pore sizes, stabilities and toxicities, which enables them to design structures that can carry molecules into cells without harmful side effects.
At CCDC we've seen the rapid rise of MOFs deposited within the CSD over the last 50 years, the graph above shoes the growth to over 90,000 MOFs by 2018. It was interesting to see some of the latest research using these structures in the development of potentially life saving treatment!
We've partnered with the British Crystallographic Association to celebrate how we know best, with crystal structures! Click below to take a look at some of latest elements to enter our interactive periodic table, and find out some interesting facts about each element and associated crystal structures!
We are welcoming contributions from the community on this project so please get in touch to get involved! See who else has contributed here.
The US Crystal Growing Competition is an important scientific outreach activity designed to provide K-12 grade students and teachers a fun, hands-on STEM experience. Events like this are vital for encouraging students to get involved with science, and CCDC are very proud to be sponsoring the competition this year!
The end of September marked the end of our annual CSD 3D Print contest which aims to showcase how easy it is to create an experimentally accurate 3D printed molecule of any part of a crystal structure using our free visualisation and analysis tool Mercury.
We have some great entries this year! The winner will be announced next week so keep an eye out! Find out more about the annual contest here or view all the past and present entries on twitter using hashtag #CSD3DPrint.
If you'd like to contribute your stories or research to our monthly newsletter, please don't hesitate to get in touch at hello@ccdc.cam.ac.uk.
CCDC, 12, Union Rd, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB2 1EZ, United Kingdom