Chicago, IL --CrossFireplusReactions, a fully integrated reactions database, and the Beilstein Commander, a graphical client that provides a unified interface to the entire Beilstein suite of products, were unveiled last week at the 110th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago.

The comments of researchers who had an opportunity to visit the Beilstein booth can be summed up as follows: CrossFireplusReactions running under the Commander delivers the performance of CrossFire, with the comprehensive coverage and quality only Beilstein can provide.

The Beilstein Commander is a graphical interface designed to integrate the complete Beilstein suite of products in one coherent unit. All interapplication communication is handled transparently to the user. The Beilstein Commander runs on PC computers under Microsoft Windows 3.x, the newly released Windows 95, and on Macintosh computers under System 7.5.

CrossFireplusReactions complements the CrossFire system and delivers a complete in-house information solution. The realization of a vision of chemical information, it breaks down artificially created barriers to information about SUBSTANCES (molecules and properties), REACTIONS and CITATIONS. For the first time, scientists are able to search and display information in the way which is most intuitive to them -- letting the format adapt to their requirements. Here, truly, is information at your fingertips.

The Beilstein paradigm of chemical information management involves three mutually inclusive domains: Substances, Reactions and Citations. When you review the results of your search in the context of the substances domain, you get the chemical structure and ALL its properties, detailed in up to 350 data fields. If you are interested in how to synthesize a molecule, or wish to see how a structure (or substructure) participates in reactions, the reactions domain presents to you the chemical reactions, reactions' conditions, and literature references. If, from there, you switch to the citations domain, you see ALL the reactions written in the paper that reported the reaction in which you were originally interested.

Hyperlinks present in substances, reactions and citations, allow for even more direct and effortless navigation between the various sources of information.

The structure search system developed for CrossFire has been extended to include reaction sub-structure searching: you can define the role of a structure or sub-structure in the reaction, and search using reaction attributes such as reaction centers, bond fate, and atom-atom mapping. An intuitive interface allows easy creation of reaction queries. The unique mapping tool, one of many innovations developed for CrossFireplusReactions, provides the simplest and most elegant way to define chemical reactions.

Starting with about ten million reactions, with about 300,000 more to come each year, CrossFireplusReactions is the largest and most comprehensive database of chemical reactions available. Reaction conditions such as solvent, temperature, coreactants, catalysts, yield, etc. are displayed with the results, and are also fully searchable as part of the query. As could be expected from Beilstein, all reactions have complete literature citations, and these, also, are fully searchable.

Chemists involved in organic synthesis and reaction planning, find in Beilstein an indispensable tool for daily research. Scientists seeking to optimize reaction schemes, have turned to the wealth of data available in CrossFireplusReactions as the optimal solution.

CrossFireplusReactions employs RISC technology, a new structure indexing system, and a revolutionary search engine to bring close to 10 million organic reactions and their associated properties and literature references in-house. The client-server system links RISC data servers with clients running on Windows based IBM PC compatible machines and Macintosh computers.

Clemens Jochum, Managing Director of Beilstein Information Systems remarked: "Our customers have been looking for a high quality solution to their organic synthesis needs. To date, there is no other information system that can approximate the capabilities of CrossFireplusReactions in richness of the knowledge base, or in the performance of the search engine."

Beilstein Informationssysteme GmbH, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and Beilstein Information Systems, Inc., with offices in Englewood, Colorado, also market the Beilstein Handbook of Organic Chemistry: the world's leading authority on organic chemical information.

CrossFire, CrossFireplusReactions, and the Beilstein Commander are trademarks of Beilstein Information Systems. All other trademarks are the property of their holders.