Molecular shape and electrostatics in the encoding of relevant chemical information

COMP 44

Anthony Nicholls, anthony@eyesopen.com, OpenEye Scientific Software Inc, 3600 Cerrillos Rd., Suite 1107, Santa Fe, NM 87505 and J. Andrew Grant, andrew.grant@astrazeneca.com, Lead Discovery, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Mereside, Macclesfield, SK10 4TF, United Kingdom.
Molecular shape and electostatic profile are key descriptors of molecular activity. In addition, they derive from the underlying chemical composition but not uniquely, i.e. different molecules may have similar shape and electrostatics. As such they have the property of a searchable one-way hash function: they encode much that is relevant of the underlying molecule while hiding its identity. This presentation will discuss various methods by which shape and electrostatics may be represented for rapid search and retrieval and used as a "safe" surrogate for chemical content.