The CCDC are pleased to announce that it is now a registered Supporter of the InChI Trust. The Trust aims to develop unique machine-readable chemical structure representations which will enable the interlinking and combining of chemical, biological and related information http://www.inchi-trust.org for more information.

CCDC strongly supports these aims "Given the vast resource of data available, it is vital that this can be efficiently and thoroughly searched to maximise the benefits to the scientific community. The InChI Trust presents a forward-looking vision for the future of data retrieval," says Gwenda Kyd, Principal Scientific Editor.

CCDC are pleased to announce the 2012 release of the Cambridge Structural Database System (CSD V5.33). The 2012 release contains many new features and enhancements including integrated data analysis tools and the ability to perform polymorphism risk assessment based on a statistical analysis of hydrogen bonding patterns in the CSD. Further details are provided here.

CCDC are pleased to announce the CSD Solid Form Suite to support pharmaceutical and agrochemicals development. Using a knowledge-based approach the Solid Form Suite provides guidance and decision support for form screening and selection, enabling Quality by Design from an early stage. Read the full press release.

CCDC are pleased to announce the release of GOLD version 5.1 which contains many new features, modifications and bug fixes. Full details of which are provided in the release notes. Most notably ChemPLP has been made the default scoring function in GOLD following recent studies that have demonstrated its superiority for both pose prediction and virtual screening.

Olex2 users can now directly upload CIFs for deposition to the CSD. Read more in our press release.

CellCheckCSD, developed for automated use through Agilent's CrysAlis^Pro, is a free service that enables users to check their pre-experiment unit cell against the CSD before collecting a full diffraction dataset. This allows quick evaluation of whether a new crystal sample has been published before and helps to identify situations where starting materials or a reaction by-product have been crystallised by accident. The aim is to avoid wasting valuable diffractometer time due to unintentional collection of a full dataset for a known crystal structure. Read more in our press release.

CCDC are happy to announce the release of enCIFer 1.4, free software for checking and validating Crystallographic Information Files. This version of enCIFer contains modifications and bug fixes, full details are provided in the EnciferChanges.txt file located in the installation directory.

CCDC are delighted to announce the release of Relibase+ version 3.1 that contains many new features, modifications and bug fixes. Full details are provided in the release notes. Most notably, Relibase+ 3.1 features a new and much improved graphical user interface for building in-house databases. It can also store and retrieve structure factors.

The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre is a registered Independent Research Organisation and we are eligible to receive funding from a number of sources. We are seeking funding for a number of two year research fellowships under the European Union's Marie Curie Action program, to start in 2012. Read more on our Vacancies page.

We are pleased to announce that structure factors are now being accepted with CIFs for deposition to the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). Read more in our press release.

We are delighted to be continuing our collaboration with Cambridge-based Astex Therapeutics following their merger with SuperGen. Read more in our press release.

CCDC are delighted to announce that statistical analysis tools are now provided within Mercury and are available for CSD System licence holders. These tools enable enable straightforward visualisation and analysis of ConQuest substructure searches where geometric parameters (e.g. bond lengths, angles, torsions etc) have been defined in the query. This functionality replaces that previously provided in Vista.

The Mercury 2.4.5 update can be downloaded here.

Three of our staff are attending this year's Spring ACS in Anaheim, USA and we have a busy schedule with 4 scientific talks:

• How good is my model? Dr John Liebescheutz. Drug Discovery, Sunday March 27th, Anaheim Convention Centre, 213B, 8.30am.
• Ensuring sustainability of a comprehensive and highly curated scientific data resource. Dr Ian J Bruno. Open Data, Monday March 28th, Anaheim Convention Centre, 202A, 10.10am.
• Development and performance overview of the GOLD Docking Program. Dr John Liebescheutz. Docking and Scoring: A review of docking programs, Monday March 28th, Anaheim Convention Centre, 213B, 4.00pm.
• Using experimentally-measured crystal structures to teach organic chemistry concepts. Dr Gary M. Battle. Advances in teaching organic chemistry, Thursday March 31st, Disney's grand Californian Hotel, Trillium B, 1.25pm.

The client for IsoStar 2.1.2 can now be downloaded for Windows and Linux platforms from the downloads page of our website. The CCDC-hosted public IsoStar server at http://isostar.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/html/isostar has also been updated to version 2.1.2 (please note you will require a valid CSD System licence to be able to use this server). A Mac version of the client installer will be made available soon.

A patch version of the GOLD Suite has been released. Further details, download and installation instructions are available from the GOLD FAQ page of our website. Release notes are provided on the GOLD documentation section of our website.

CCDC are delighted to announce that the 2011 version of the CSD System has been released. The version of the CSD contained within this release contains over 530,000 entries. Full details on software improvements can be found in the release and installation notes. We hope you like the new packaging!