Automated Structure Verification Using ACD/Labs Software

Does Your Organization Have a Structure Verification Bottleneck?

The process of structure verification takes place when an experimental spectrum is obtained and checked for consistency against a chemical structure.

Chemical structure verification by NMR is one of the fundamental practices in synthetic chemistry. From the synthetic chemist all the way to the expert NMR spectroscopist, structure verification is an important part of the analytical data workflow within an organization.

ACD/Labs offers an automated structure verification solution using NMR software that has helped several organizations increase their throughput and quality control in an efficient, accurate, and productive manner. Read about some real-world applications of this solution.

To find out more about ACD/Labs structure verification solutions, keep reading below or contact us to test a similar solution at your organization.

What is Automated Structure Verification?

For several years, ACD/Labs has been working towards automating the process of structure verification with NMR software. In this context, automated structure verification is a method that compares the chemical shifts, intensities, and multiplicities of signals in experimental NMR spectra with those from a predicted spectrum with a proposed structure. During this comparison, a match factor is produced and used to classify a spectrum-to-structure match into one of three categories—consistent, ambiguous, or inconsistent.

What Kind of Performance is Achievable?

ACD/Labs is constantly improving and evaluating the performance of this solution:

• For normal 1D ¹H NMR spectra and their corresponding proposed chemical structures, this system can prepare and evaluate 69% of the spectra completely and automatically, without ever needing to be seen and evaluated by a human. In a published study on 26 randomly chosen structures from a set of commercially available compounds, this system produced 0 false positives and 0 false negatives.¹
• When a combination of 1D ¹H and 2D ¹H–¹³C HSQC NMR spectra are available along with their corresponding proposed chemical structures, it is possible to unambiguously identify at least 90% of the correct structures in a dataset.² In this blind study, one false negative (4%) and three false positives (6%) were observed.²

Has This Approach Been Peer-Reviewed?

In 2006, a study entitled, "Automated Structure Verification based on ¹H NMR Prediction" was published in Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry. Read the abstract and get the article.

In 2007, a study entitled, "Automated Structure Verification based on a combination of 1D ¹H NMR and 2D ¹H-¹³C HSQC Spectra" was published in Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry. Read the abstract and get the article.

Has This Approach Been Validated with Real-World Data?

In 2007 the Automated Structure Confirmation Initiative (ASCI) was formed, consisting of NMR Spectroscopists from several of the major pharmaceutical companies in the world to evaluate the performance of automated verification in their own laboratories. The main purpose of this group is to investigate the accuracy and reliability of automated structure confirmation in a real-world environment.

In addition, ACD/Labs scientists have presented the following scientific posters on the topic of automated structure verification at recent NMR conferences:

SMASH 2007, Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France
"Validating Automated Structure Confirmation in a Blind Study"
Read the abstract or download the poster in Adobe Acrobat format (387 Kb PDF file).

ENC 2006, Pacific Grove, CA, USA
"Automated Evaluation of a Chemical Structure with only 1D ¹H and 2D ¹H-¹³C HSQC"
Read the abstract or download the poster in Adobe Acrobat format (354 Kb PDF file).

What are the Real-World Applications of this Solution?

Several current users have presented their applications of Automated Structure Verification using ACD/Labs software:

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals is using combined verification to validate their compound registration database and to improve how analytical data is being handled in their open access environment.

Read the abstract and download Phil Keyes' presentation.

ASDI employs a high-throughput verification routine in their analytical laboratory. In their lab, more than 1000 compounds are directed to 1D ¹H NMR analysis per week. They use ACD/Labs software to automatically evaluate 60-80% of their ¹H NMR data. This solution helps ASDI accomplish their ultimate goals of maximizing instrument efficiency, data throughput, and cost effectiveness.

Read the abstract and download Anthony Macherone's presentation.

GlaxoSmithKline has been active with ACD/Labs automated structure verification efforts for several years now.

To learn more about their latest performance metrics, read the abstract and download Randy Rutkowske's presentation.

Is ACD/Labs' Structure Verification Suitable for Me and My Company?

Let us help you determine what type of accuracy would be achievable with the type of data you handle on a regular basis. Contact us today and we would be happy to discuss and set up a trial of the software to test on your data.

¹ Sergey S. Golotvin, Eugene Vodopianov, Brent A. Lefebvre, Antony J. Williams, Timothy D. Spitzer. Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry, Volume 44, Issue 5, Pages 524–538.
² Sergey S. Golotvin, Eugene Vodopianov, Rostislav Pol, Brent A. Lefebvre, Antony J. Williams, Randy D. Rutkowske, Timothy D. Spitzer. Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry, Volume 45, Issue 10, Pages 803–813.