Chemical information is now seen as critical for most areas of life sciences. But unlike Bioinformatics, where data is Openly available and freely re-usable, most chemical information is closed and cannot be re-distributed without permission. This has led to a failure to adopt modern informatics and software techniques and therefore paucity of chemistry in bioinformatics. New technology, however, offers the hope of making chemical data (compounds and properties) Free during the authoring process. We argue that the technology is already available; we require a collective agreement to enhance publication protocols. B O D Y Background In "Representation and Use of Chemistry in the Global Electronic Age"[1] we showed that new technology can provide great increases in the quantity and quality of aggregated chemical information published in the primary literature. We also argued the benefits of Open Access and Open Data. The current invited overview and a parallel technical articl...
Peter Murray-Rust, John B. O. Mitchell, Henry S. R