New database highlights cumulative chemical dangers – Chemistry World (subscription)

A collaborative and publicly available database of previously inaccessible hazardous chemical reactions has been launched by the Pistoia Alliance, a not for profit group based in Boston, US.

This new Chemical Safety Library (CSL) service features a submission tool that allows researchers to add safety data in just minutes, helping to prevent dangerous events from being repeated. The system was designed in conjunction with Pistoias industry members, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

Although many commercial and open resources already offer information on the hazardous properties of individual reagents, often there are no details about the effect of combining such reagents, according to Steve Arlington, the Pistoia Alliances president. In addition, such events are often not shared within or between companies.

The CSLs chemical reaction incident dataset can be downloaded, and it can also be configured to alert scientists if there is a known safety risk before they carry out a research project.

Within hours of Pistoia announcing the CSL on 16 March, 150 people had already signed up to use the new system, says Carmen Nitsche, a business development consultant for Pistoia. Users have access to the base set of about 25 incidents with which Pistoia pre-populated the system, and they can enter their own incidents, which will then be reviewed before being approved. If we are successful, this will be a resource for academia, for chemical companies, for anyone who has lab scenarios where this could be useful, Nitsche tells Chemistry World.

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New database highlights cumulative chemical dangers - Chemistry World (subscription)