 | |
| Developer(s) | Open Babel development team |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2 June 2005 |
| Stable release | |
| Repository | www |
| Written in | C, C++ (wxWidgets [2] ) |
| Operating system | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android |
| Platform | IA-32, x86-64 |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Cheminformatics, molecular modelling |
| License | GPL 2.0 |
| Website | www |
Open Babel is computer software, a chemical expert system mainly used to interconvert chemical file formats. [3]
Due to the strong relationship to informatics this program belongs more to the category cheminformatics than to molecular modelling. It is available for Windows, Unix, Linux, macOS, and Android. It is free and open-source software released under a GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0.
The project's stated goal is: "Open Babel is a community-driven scientific project assisting both users and developers as a cross-platform program and library designed to support molecular modeling, chemistry, and many related areas, including interconversion of file formats and data."
Open Babel and JOELib were derived from the OELib cheminformatics library. In turn, OELib was based on ideas in the original chemistry program Babel and an unreleased object-oriented programming library called OBabel.
A chemical database is a database specifically designed to store chemical information. This information is about chemical and crystal structures, spectra, reactions and syntheses, and thermophysical data.
Cheminformatics refers to the use of physical chemistry theory with computer and information science techniques—so called "in silico" techniques—in application to a range of descriptive and prescriptive problems in the field of chemistry, including in its applications to biology and related molecular fields. Such in silico techniques are used, for example, by pharmaceutical companies and in academic settings to aid and inform the process of drug discovery, for instance in the design of well-defined combinatorial libraries of synthetic compounds, or to assist in structure-based drug design. The methods can also be used in chemical and allied industries, and such fields as environmental science and pharmacology, where chemical processes are involved or studied.
Chemical Markup Language is an approach to managing molecular information using tools such as XML and Java. It was the first domain specific implementation based strictly on XML, first based on a DTD and later on an XML Schema, the most robust and widely used system for precise information management in many areas. It has been developed over more than a decade by Murray-Rust, Rzepa and others and has been tested in many areas and on a variety of machines.
A molecule editor is a computer program for creating and modifying representations of chemical structures.
A chemical file format is a type of data file which is used specifically for depicting molecular data. One of the most widely used is the chemical table file format, which is similar to Structure Data Format (SDF) files. They are text files that represent multiple chemical structure records and associated data fields. The XYZ file format is a simple format that usually gives the number of atoms in the first line, a comment on the second, followed by a number of lines with atomic symbols and cartesian coordinates. The Protein Data Bank Format is commonly used for proteins but is also used for other types of molecules. There are many other types which are detailed below. Various software systems are available to convert from one format to another.
The International Chemical Identifier is a textual identifier for chemical substances, designed to provide a standard way to encode molecular information and to facilitate the search for such information in databases and on the web. Initially developed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 2000 to 2005, the format and algorithms are non-proprietary. Since May 2009, it has been developed by the InChI Trust, a nonprofit charity from the United Kingdom which works to implement and promote the use of InChI.
Ghemical is a computational chemistry software package written in C++ and released under the GNU General Public License. The program has graphical user interface based on GTK+2 and supports quantum mechanical and molecular mechanic models, with geometry optimization, molecular dynamics, and a large set of visualization tools. Ghemical relies on external code to provide the quantum-mechanical calculations — MOPAC provides the semi-empirical MNDO, MINDO, AM1, and PM3 methods, and MPQC methods based on Hartree–Fock calculations.
JOELib is computer software, a chemical expert system used mainly to interconvert chemical file formats. Because of its strong relationship to informatics, this program belongs more to the category cheminformatics than to molecular modelling. It is available for Windows, Unix and other operating systems supporting the programming language Java. It is free and open-source software distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0.
OELib was an open source Cheminformatics library written by Matt Stahl and based on the ideas of OBabel. Its actual GPLed C++ and Java based successors are OpenBabel and JOELib, with Its commercial successor being called OEChem.
The Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) is computer software, a library in the programming language Java, for chemoinformatics and bioinformatics. It is available for Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. It is free and open-source software distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.0.
Henry Stephen Rzepa is a chemist and Emeritus Professor of Computational Chemistry at Imperial College London.
Peter Murray-Rust is a chemist currently working at the University of Cambridge. As well as his work in chemistry, Murray-Rust is also known for his support of open access and open data.
Chemaxon is a cheminformatics and bioinformatics software development company, headquartered in Budapest with 250 employees. The company also has offices in Cambridge, San Diego, Basel and in Prague. and it has distributors in China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia. Chemaxon was acquired by Certara on July 9th, 2024.
Chemical similarity refers to the similarity of chemical elements, molecules or chemical compounds with respect to either structural or functional qualities, i.e. the effect that the chemical compound has on reaction partners in inorganic or biological settings. Biological effects and thus also similarity of effects are usually quantified using the biological activity of a compound. In general terms, function can be related to the chemical activity of compounds.
Blue Obelisk is an informal group of chemists who promote open data, open source, and open standards; it was initiated by Peter Murray-Rust and others in 2005. Multiple open source cheminformatics projects associate themselves with the Blue Obelisk, among which, in alphabetical order, Avogadro, Bioclipse, cclib, Chemistry Development Kit, GaussSum, JChemPaint, JOELib, Kalzium, Openbabel, OpenSMILES, and UsefulChem.
Avogadro is a molecule editor and visualizer designed for cross-platform use in computational chemistry, molecular modeling, bioinformatics, materials science, and related areas. It is extensible via a plugin architecture.
Christoph Steinbeck is a German chemist and has a professorship for analytical chemistry, cheminformatics and chemometrics at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena in Thuringia.
The CompTox Chemicals Dashboard is a freely accessible online database created and maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The database provides access to multiple types of data including physicochemical properties, environmental fate and transport, exposure, usage, in vivo toxicity, and in vitro bioassay. EPA and other scientists use the data and models contained within the dashboard to help identify chemicals that require further testing and reduce the use of animals in chemical testing. The Dashboard is also used to provide public access to information from EPA Action Plans, e.g. around perfluorinated alkylated substances.
The Modular Chemical Descriptor Language(MCDL) is a method for representing of molecular structures and pertinent molecular information using linear descriptors. MCDL files are designed for cross-platform transfer and manipulation of compound-specific chemical data. They consist of sets of unique information (fragments, connections) and nonunique information (coordinates, ID numbers, spectra, physical-chemical properties). The nonunique portion of the descriptor can be customized, thus providing end-user flexibility. Unique representation of atom and double bond stereochemistry is contrived as separate modules.
