SPRESIweb

SPRESIweb 
InfoChem  
Reviewed by Dana Roth
California Institute of Technology

InfoChem’s SPRESIweb 2.1, launched in 2005, offers web page structure, reaction, property data and text searching. SPRESIweb has indexed 4.5 million compounds and 3.6 million reactions from articles and patents published between 1974 and 2002. InfoChem has contracted with the VINITI Institute to continuously provide updates, consistent with SPRESIweb’s focus on articles describing synthetic procedures for organic/organometallic compounds.  

SPRESIweb provides links to journal publishers’ servers and major patent databases. It also offers links to several document delivery services, to ACD/Labs and a database of commercial sources.  

The search module consists of three parts: molecules, reactions and references. Text searching (eg name, trivial name or molecular formula) defaults to ’contains’, providing both left and right truncation. Structure searching offers either ISIS/Draw, Java Applet or ChemDraw. Detailed instructions for advanced structure/reaction searching are linked from the search page. 

A synthesis tree search (STS) allows use of yield, reaction conditions and catalysts, and solvents as additional search terms. STS displays reactant and product structures, reaction yields with links to reaction details and a search link to similar reactions. Each structure in the tree is linked to its synthetic reactions, commercial availability, physical properties and literature references.

InfoChem’s SPRESIweb 2.1 has a well designed interface that is very intuitive and easy to use. It provides a viable alternative for compound and reaction searching in smaller institutions.