New online portal links Australia’s researchers

Professor Sally-Ann Poulsen in the laboratory
Professor Sally-Ann Poulsen

Griffith University has produced a major new online resource for Australia‘s researchers.

The Compounds Australia Structure PoRtal (known as “CASPeR”) is an online portal providing access to the data of more than 50,000 different compounds and samples.

Researchers can search for a chemical structure they believe will assist their work and the database will offer up the best match. It links the nation’s researchers in a way that has not been possible previously. It was introduced recentlyat the Fragment-Based Drug Design Down-Under conference in Melbourne.

CASPeRhas been developed as a project between two departments within Griffith University – eResearch Services and Compounds Australia.

Compounds Australia ChairSally-Ann Poulsensaid the portal was “a powerful initiative to assist the health and medical researchers in Australia toaccess high quality compoundscrucial for therapeutic drug discovery”.

Manager Moana Simpson said it substantially increased the value of the nation’s compound collections by “enhancing accessto up-to-date information on chemicals”.

One of Griffith’s leading research centres is the Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery and director Jenny Martin said the new portal “links our nation’s fantastic and unique chemistry with the world’s biologists”.

“This will build collaborations in science so that new discoveries relating to abetter understanding of disease mechanismsare fast tracked,” Professor Martin said.

The portal will deliver information directly to the researchers by providing:

  • Individual chemical properties
  • Compound structures
  • Structure searching capabilities
  • Up-to-date library numbers on accessible compounds and samples