The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) is a

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

based in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, England. Its primary activity is the compilation and maintenance of the

Cambridge Structural Database The Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) is both a repository and a validated and curated resource for the three-dimensional structural data of molecules generally containing at least carbon and hydrogen, comprising a wide range of organic, metal ...

, a database of small molecule

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that repeat ...

s. They also perform analysis on the database for the benefit of the scientific community, and write and distribute

computer software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

to allow others to do the same.

History

In 1962, Dr. Olga Kennard OBE FRS set up a chemical crystallography group within the

Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge The Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry is the University of Cambridge's chemistry department. It was formed from a merger in the early 1980s of two separate departments that had moved into the Lensfield Road building decades earlier: the Depar ...

. In 1965 she founded the CCDC and established the associated

. At that time, there were only about 3,000 published X-ray structures, and the work involved converting these into a

machine-readable In communications and computing, a machine-readable medium (or computer-readable medium) is a medium capable of storing data in a format easily readable by a digital computer or a sensor. It contrasts with ''human-readable'' medium and data. T ...

form. Kennard invited Frank Allen to join the group, which he did in 1970, becoming Scientific Director and then Executive Director before retiring in 2008. In 1992, the CCDC moved into its own building adjacent to the Cambridge chemistry department. This new headquarters was designed by the Danish architect Professor Erik Christian Sørensen and won ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' Building of the Year Award in 1993. The CCDC still retains very close links as a University Partner Institution that trains students for postgraduate research degrees but from 1987 became an independent company. By 2019 the database had grown to over a million structures.

Current research

The staff at the CCDC curate the database of small-molecule organic and metal-organic crystal structures and make these available for download by the public. They also create and maintain a suite of

cheminformatics Cheminformatics (also known as chemoinformatics) 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 ...

software that may be used to apply the data to applications in the life sciences, including

crystal engineering Crystal engineering studies the design and synthesis of solid-state structures with desired properties through deliberate control of Intermolecular force, intermolecular interactions. It is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary academic fiel ...

and

materials science Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials sci ...

Programs Developed

CCDC developed programs such as ConQuest and Mercury that run under

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, various types of

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, and

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

. ConQuest is a search interface to the

(CSD). Mercury is a crystal structure visualizer tool, of which later versions released in 2015 and later provide the functionality to generate 3D prints.

References

External links

The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre
{{Authority control 1965 establishments in England Chemical industry in the United Kingdom Crystallography organizations Partner institutions of the University of Cambridge Research institutes established in 1965 Research institutes in Cambridge Science and technology in Cambridgeshire Research organisations in England

History

Current research

Programs Developed

See also

References

External links