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Client: MDL (San Leandro, CA).

View the text of the press release below. Hard copies are available upon request.

Need: MDL attends several key tradeshows each year. It uses press releases to inform customers and trade press contacts of product releases slated for the show. The release of CrossFire 2000 was important for several reasons. The system was originally produced by Beilstein Information Systems, which had been merged into MDL just months before. CrossFire 2000 was a major release for Beilstein customers and, consequently, for MDL. In addition, the release included some unique functionality.

Solution: Deborah Ausman wrote this release, which highlights the software's science hopping functionality.

MDL RELEASES NEW SEARCH SYSTEM FOR ITS CHEMICAL AND NEW MATERIALS DISCOVERY REFERENCE DATABASES

-- Unique "Science Hopping" Capability Connects CrossFire 2000 Users to More Scientific Software Applications --

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- August 21, 2000 -- MDL Information Systems, Inc., the recognized leader in discovery informatics for the life sciences and chemistry in industry and academia, announced today the release of a new version of CrossFire, the company’s client/server system for navigating two of the world’s largest electronic collections of chemical data. New features in CrossFire 2000 integrate the system more closely with other scientific applications and improve server-side performance. In addition, new search options enable researchers to conduct complex, fact-based searches over the two databases accessible with CrossFire: CrossFire Beilstein, which contains data describing the preparation and properties of over eight million known organic chemical compounds, and CrossFire Gmelin, which contains over 1.4 million inorganic and organometallic compounds. MDL is demonstrating CrossFire 2000 at the 220th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), August 20-24, 2000 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., booth #341. Refer to www.mdli.com for more information on MDL events at the show.

A key new capability in CrossFire 2000 is "science hopping," which enables scientists to "jump" between the CrossFire client and virtually any application. The connection is established through special BCCOM files that contain the data that CrossFire Beilstein and CrossFire Gmelin need to execute searches. Sample applets included with CrossFire 2000 illustrate how to science hop; for instance, CrossFire DataLink automatically turns selected text in Microsoft Word into text-based search queries for CrossFire Beilstein. Scientists can also define hyperlinks within CrossFire Beilstein and CrossFire Gmelin that they can use to jump from these databases to other systems, such as proprietary chemical databases and inventory systems.

"Both CrossFire Beilstein and CrossFire Gmelin are the logical first steps in chemical and new materials discovery—but we know that they are just two of the many software tools that scientists rely on for discovery research," explained Dr. Jürgen Swienty-Busch, the product manager responsible for CrossFire at MDL. "Science hopping makes it easier for scientists to capitalize on discoveries made while searching our large databases and to use the databases to follow up on ideas that may come to them as they work in other scientific applications."

Other new features and enhancements in CrossFire 2000 include:

Easy Data Search (EDS): The immense data structure associated with databases of over one million records can make factual searches intimidating. EDS offers researchers the convenience of a form for creating factual queries to find, for instance, compounds in CrossFire Beilstein associated with a particular drug effect.
Hitset Navigator: CrossFire's complex and comprehensive data structure has always been uniquely easy to navigate because of the hyperlinks that connect the different database domains to each other. The Hitset Navigator further simplifies browsing by plotting a visual map that charts the hyperlinks as associated with retrieved results. Scientists can move from result to result, following hyperlinks to uncover additional, relevant information and, with the Hitset Navigator, always find their way back to where they started.
Integrated programs: Chemists can streamline research tasks by using three new, fully integrated software packages in conjunction with CrossFire. A hotlink included in CrossFire gives scientists access to a 60-day trial version of SCULPT, a desktop application for 3D molecular structure visualization and analysis. CrossFire also includes AutoNom Standard, an application that generates IUPAC chemical names directly from graphical structures created in CrossFire’s structure editor or in ISIS/Draw. Finally, CrossFire users can select either the structure editor or ISIS/Draw as their preferred drawing tool.
Enhanced data export: CrossFire 2000 users can now export any kind of data in a variety of formats, including "tagged ASCII" or HTML.

About MDL
MDL Information Systems ("MDL") is the recognized leader in discovery informatics for the life sciences and chemistry in industry and academia. MDL software, content, and services provide the enterprise-wide discovery informatics framework for comprehensive and successful discovery research. We are an international business headquartered in San Leandro, CA, with offices worldwide. MDL Information Systems, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Elsevier Science, Inc.