Mobile apps for drug discovery
Mobile hardware and software technology continues to evolve very rapidly and presents drug discovery scientists with new platforms for accessing data and performing data analysis. Smartphones and tablet computers can now be used to perform many of the operations previously addressed by laptops or desktop computers. Although the smaller screen sizes and requirements for touch screen manipulation can present user interface design challenges, especially with chemistry related applications, these limitations are driving innovative solutions. We will present an introduction to some of the mobile apps we have been involved with most closely. One example is the Green Solvents app which utilizes data created by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical roundtable. We will also describe a wiki to capture information about scientific mobile apps (www.scimobileapps.com) and provide our perspective on what mobile platforms may provide the drug discovery scientist in the future as this disruptive technology takes off.