iChemLabs was founded in February 2007 by Kevin Theisen to distribute the scientific software he was developing. He initially studied and developed algorithms to simulate nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This research involved the production of scientifically oriented graphical user interfaces, and his interests expanded to incorporate scientific visualization and graphics. Over the last few years, our goals have become more focused:

1. Provide the Gold Standard in quality and function for chemical publishing software.
2. Be at the forefront of the next generation of web-based scientific software.
3. Grow our presence in this industry by providing quality proprietary and open source software solutions to benefit our partners and collaborators.
4. Focus on compatibility in all aspects: operating systems (Linux fully supported), platforms (netbooks, mobile devices), web services (ChemDoodle Web Components), 3rd party support (Databases, OpenOffice, iWork)

ChemDoodle

ChemDoodle was released to the market in February of 2008. We wanted to provide an application that was affordable to students and scientists while upholding a rigorous standard of quality. ChemDoodle provided customers with a chemical structure environment that could do much more than other chemical sketchers. Widgets included in the package were tiny applications that provided powerful functionality from database integration, to real time statistics, to NMR simulation. The MolGrabber widget provided users with access to the entire PubChem database where returned structures could be dragged right onto the sheet. This widget alone is acclaimed by many to be one of the most useful and innovative functions they have seen in this area of software.

ChemDoodle 2 was launched in June of 2009. This update introduced huge changes to the software and a continuance of our dedication to innovation and quality in this market. One new addition was the ability to change the stroke style of structures for more artistic and less formal diagrams. We also developed an important library, VectorPaste, to allow our Java technologies to transfer scalable vector graphics and metadata to other applications via the system clipboard, an ability previously unavailable to Java developers. Thousands of users have now used ChemDoodle 2 as we continue to grow its functionality and scope. To date, ChemDoodle is used in hundreds of institutions around the world, from major companies, to government organizations, to high schools.

ChemDoodle 3 will soon be released. Since its inception, the system has matured significantly. Keep up to date with our development by subscribing to our RSS feed. We know you will be impressed.

Cheminformatics on Periodic Systems

In 2008, Mr. Theisen began his PhD work at the University of California at Berkeley. There he began to develop the field of materials informatics. He produced periodic analogues to standard small molecule informatics algorithms, from ring perception, to descriptors, to visualization. He also developed abstract visualization techniques for depicting the void space topology of three-periodic nets, aiding engineering goals. Due to the success of iChemLabs, Mr. Theisen graduated from Berkeley in 2009 with a non-terminal MS in Chemistry and an invitation to return. We continue to collaborate with individuals at UC:Berkeley.

ChemDoodle Web Components

ChemDoodle Web Components were unveiled in August of 2009. This product was based on the budding HTML 5 technology, Canvas. To date, iChemLabs provides this Javascript cheminformatics and web visualization toolkit under the open source GPL license to best serve the community. Included in the library were several components to provide chemically-relevant images, animations and cheminformatics tasks. The project quickly went viral, being discussed within online communities such as Twitter and FriendFeed. We are currently providing custom development for several collaborators that use this library.

We are also actively pursuing WebGL to provide hardware accelerated 3D graphics directly in the browser. 3D ChemDoodle Web Components were released as an addition to the ChemDoodle Web Component library in February of 2010. The 3D components were one of the first examples of WebGL technology applied to the sciences and excited many working with Canvas/WebGL, not just chemists. The Khronos Group, which develops the WebGL API, was quick to cover this product and we are happy to inspire other scientific web applications. With the emergence of WebGL and the proof of 3D ChemDoodle Web Components, any interface previously created in the physical sciences may now be reproduced natively in the browsers. We are optimistic as we watch this technology grow and replace Flash and Java applets. We are also excited to see mobile operating systems supporting HTML5 so that our creations will be able to run on all desktop and mobile platforms.

The Future

As always, we continue to pursue our goals. In addition to advancing our main products and collaborations, we are also researching and developing other new projects. We will always strive to reinvent common tools to improve their efficiency and productivity. We are also beginning to expand, so if you are interested in a cheminformatics job, please send us your resume. We believe chemists with computational skills are among the most essential members of the chemistry community and we offer great opportunities. A BA or BS is all we require. If you are interested in working or collaborating with us, please feel free to contact us.