Frankfurt, Germany, May 15, 2008 – Alexander “Sandy” Lawson, PhD, Director, Research & Development, Elsevier Information Systems GmbH, Frankfurt, will receive the prestigious Mike Lynch Award from the Chemical Structure Association (CSA) Trust (www.csa-trust.org). This honor is bestowed upon Prof. Lawson in recognition of 25 years of outstanding accomplishments in the field of cheminformatics, specifically relating to the development of the CrossFire Beilstein (www.info.crossfirebeilstein.com) database and the origination of the CrossFire concept that revolutionized chemical information and reaction and structure searching.
The triennial CSA Trust Mike Lynch Award recognizes and encourages outstanding accomplishments in education, research and development activities that are related to the systems and methods used to store, process and retrieve information about chemical structures, reactions and properties. The award will be presented to Prof. Lawson on 1 June 2008 during the International Conference on Chemical Structures, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands.
René Deplanque, Ph.D., Director of FIZ CHEMIE Berlin and a member of the Board of Trustees of the CSA Trust, called Prof. Lawson “the scientific genius behind the development of the Beilstein databank.” He continued, “His combination of profound knowledge of chemistry, reactions, molecular classification and search systems makes him one of the most distinguished people in the area of cheminformatics. His pioneering achievements range from the CrossFire concept and the development of the Lawson Number on the one hand, to automatic methods to translate chemical structures and free text in both directions, on the other hand. I am very glad that his lifetime achievements are now honored by receiving the CSA Mike Lynch Award.”
“I am deeply honored to join the ranks of previous Mike Lynch Award recipients, whom I consider true visionaries in the field of Cheminformatics,” Prof. Lawson said.
One of the pioneers of cheminformatics, Prof. Lawson has played an instrumental role in shepherding the progress of CrossFire Beilstein as it moved into the electronic age – from its beginnings as the print Handbuch der Organischen Chemie (1881) to a powerful multimedia information system.
Working in close collaboration with a talented and innovative development team, some of Prof. Lawson’s major achievements include:
- The eponymous Lawson Number, a classification scheme based on the original Beilstein system numbers that offers an intelligent and rapid way to facilitate compound searching in an online environment
- SANDRA (Search and Retrieval in Beilstein) algorithm for rapid searching
- CrossFire search software with powerful functionality and extensive hyperlinking, which first enabled delivery of the massive Beilstein database directly to the desktop for seamless integration into chemists’ daily workflow
- Information extraction algorithms and automatic interpretation of chemical data leading to the creation of the Patent Chemistry Database
Now, Prof. Lawson and his team are working on Reaxys (www.info.reaxys.com), which will deliver the deep chemistry knowledge contained within the CrossFire databases through a powerful and highly intuitive interface, making it easier for users to find and use information. This solution promises to bring greater transparency and addressability to the user and focuses on contextual search, multistep reactions and identifying and visualizing relationships between objects.
Notes to Editors:
Born 1944 in Dunfermline, Scotland, Prof. Lawson holds a BSc in Chemistry from the University of St. Andrews (1966), a PhD in Organic Chemistry (Physical Organic) from Imperial College, London and an extra-mural professorship at the University of Mainz since the early 1990s. He was an Irvine Medalist in 1966. Since 1990 he has served on the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Committees for Publications, Databases and Structural Representation.
About Elsevier (www.elsevier.com)
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, Elsevier’s 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/), MD Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com/), Scopus (http://www.info.scopus.com/), bibliographic databases, and online reference works.
Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com/) is a global business headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc (http://www.reedelsevier.com/), a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).