Real-time collaboration for molecule design: Why medicinal chemists need more than just shared documents 

Author

  • Edmund Champness

What does effective collaboration in molecule design actually look like?

It’s more complex than simply sharing documents. Teams need consistency across compounds and data, but individuals also need space to explore and analyse on their own terms, choosing what they share and when.

Shared documents are a useful starting point, but what can we learn from them, and what needs to change for chemistry? Below, we’ll explore this balance and how we’ve addressed it in StarDrop 8.

Imagine if everyone on your team could stay in sync with the latest compounds and data, working with the same information that automatically updates as new results arrive.  

Now imagine that each person also has the freedom to explore the data in their own way. For example, one team member may wish to focus on a particular chemical series, another may want to sort the data by a subset of properties and use heatmaps to find patterns, while a third may decide to cluster compounds as they consider designing diverse compounds. When they uncover a result or insight that drives the project forward, they can share their visualisations and analyses at the click of a button, but without broadcasting every step to the entire team.  

It’s a complex balance to deliver consistency with individual freedom. But that’s what we’ve achieved with StarDrop™ 8. 

What we learned from shared documents: Consistency and security

Shared documents are one of the most common types of collaboration tools (whatever your platform of preference), making them a useful reference when considering how to achieve a similar experience for compounds and data.

What makes these tools work so well? 

  • Consistency: Everyone is always working from the latest content. When someone makes changes to the text or images, these are relayed to all collaborators. 
  • Security: The owner controls access, deciding who can view and who can edit the document. 
  • Visibility: Edits and comments are instantly visible, making it easy to see what’s new.  

Where shared documents fall short for chemistry: Flexibility

In a shared document, when you alter the font or highlight some text, everyone sees those changes. This is great for documents; you’re probably highlighting something you want others to notice. 

However, this doesn’t work in molecule design. 

While working within the same shared project, members of a team may wish to create different visualisations and analyses depending on the compounds or series they are designing or investigating. They all require access to the same underlying compounds and data, but each member needs to view and interact with them differently.  

Whatever view you’re working with, you don’t want to be forced to share this with everyone else. This is your own (sometimes messy) exploratory work, and you need to have a space where you can make sense of the data in private as you think through a design problem.  

The brief was clear: We needed a shared environment that gave everyone access to the latest compounds and data, while allowing each user the freedom to work with that information in their own way. 

This became StarDrop 8.

StarDrop 8: Shared data, individual perspectives

When you collaborate in StarDrop, you decide who has access to your compounds and data, whether as a viewer or an editor. Everyone in this group will have access to the same information, delivering consistency across the team. When new assay results arrive or someone adds a compound, everyone sees those updates immediately. 

But here’s where it gets really interesting. You and your colleagues can interact with that information and manipulate the way it’s displayed, however you choose. Then, when you’ve found something valuable (maybe a promising new compound idea or an interesting trend in the data), you can share what you see back with your team instantly. Your colleagues can build on your findings without losing their own perspective on the project. This way, the team keeps moving forward together, building on collective knowledge while maintaining the individual freedom needed for effective discovery. 

Real-time collaboration for chemistry is here

StarDrop 8 is here, and I can’t wait to see how discovery teams will leverage its real-time collaboration to progress faster together.

Interested to learn more? Watch our short video below or discover more here.

About the author

Edmund Champness

Chief Scientific Officer

Ed graduated with a degree in Mathematics in 1995 before joining GlaxoWellcome, where he helped build some of the organisation’s earliest predictive modelling tools, including the first graphical interfaces adopted across its global sites.

In 2001, he joined the team that established the UK arm of Camitro (later part of BioFocus DPI), where he designed and built the original StarDrop software. He went on to co-found Optibrium in 2009.

As Chief Scientific Officer, Ed draws on three decades of experience in predictive modelling and software innovation to guide Optibrium’s scientific vision and ensure our technologies deliver impactful solutions for discovery teams.

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