PubChem

When finding a female scientists' data turns into an archeological treasure hunt. A few months ago, I decided it would be interesting to celebrate various scientific contributions by making images of chemical / molecular structures in the Molecule World iPad app and posting them on Twitter  (@MoleculeWorld).  Whenever I can, I like to highlight scientific contributions from women on their birthdays.  Tomorrow's post will feature Dr. Isabella Karle, an x-ray crystallographer who worked on the Manhattan project and solved structures of interesting molecules like valinomycin and a South American…
On pinene and inhibiting enzymes. People of a certain age may remember a series of really funny commercials featuring Euell Gibbons and his famous question about whether you've ever eaten a pine tree.  "Some parts are edible" said Euell. Perhaps some parts are, but other pine tree products aren't so nourishing.  Crystallography365, aka @Crystal_in_city  had a couple of fun blog posts about pinene, a chemical made by pine trees, that also inhibits cytochrome P450  2B6. I was inspired by their posts and by my experience with Cytochrome P450 to go a little farther.  We like to use cytochrome…
APRIL was so much fun, that I thought I should find a molecule for May. I searched both the Gene database, the structure database, everywhere, without any luck. Finally, I decided to change the search and use the date instead of the name of the month. And here we have it, straight from PubChem. A molecule for May. 05012008 is the compound substance ID. 5/1/2008 Update: This structure turned out to be a bit surprising. Not does it look highly reactive, it also seems to disappear in the PubChem database. Sometimes I can find it by using the SID, sometimes I can't. I hate that. For those of…