"Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, has announced that it is on track to register the 50 millionth unique chemical substance on September 7. The CAS REGISTRY claims to be the most comprehensive and high-quality compendium of publicly disclosed chemical information. This milestone comes only 9 months after CAS registered its 40 millionth substance.

REGISTRY is the only integrated comprehensive source of chemical information from a full range of patent and journal literature that is curated and quality controlled by scientists working around the world. For more than 100 years, CAS scientists and colleagues in several nations have meticulously analysed and indexed publicly disclosed global scientific information to build up the unique REGISTRY resource that provides not only chemical names, the unique CAS Registry Number, and vital literature references but also ancillary information such as experimental and predicted property data (boiling and melting points, etc.), commercial availability, preparation details, spectra, and regulatory information from international sources.

CAS scientists follow rigorous criteria that maintain high quality and reliability of information in its REGISTRY. Scientists identify reputable sources and use consistent analysis before registering a substance. REGISTRY is available to scientists through CAS’ product, SciFinder, and its STN family of products. With these advanced search and analysis technologies, CAS helps scientists find reliable information that is vital to their research process."
 

Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter, 8/18/09