Around this time last year RSC CICAG held a meeting to discuss 20 years of rule of 5 this meeting involved presentations but also less formal panel discussions and informal chats. This proved to be really popular and CICAG had planned to hold another end of year meeting again with the aim of fostering more informal interactions. However, the efforts involved in converting the AI in chemistry and the Open Chemical Science meetings from physical to virtual meetings meant that we had to postpone the end of year meeting till next year.

In its place we have organised an impromptu webinar looking back at the history of subjects at the core of CICAG's interests.

Andrew Dalke has kindly agreed to talk about the history of cheminformatics from punch cards to the present day.

John Overington will also talk about the history of ChEMBL an absolutely invaluable open-source database that we now take for granted.

Our aim is that we will try to make this informal with plenty of time to ask questions/reminisce so stock up on mince pies and mulled wine, click the link below and settle back for a fascinating hour or two.

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.

When: Dec 22, 2020 04:00 PM London Topic: Looking back at Cheminformatics and ChEMBL

Register in advance for this webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-bWCQe32RW6ZKVEyb8qq4A

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

I promised a recipe.

Mulled Wine

Whilst you can buy bottles of mulled wine I think making your own gives better results (we are chemists after all).

Ingredients

A bottle of inexpensive red wine
2 oranges
2 cinnamon sticks
4 Cloves
2 Star anise
30 g Sugar (or more to taste)

Pour the red wine into a saucepan and add the cinnamon sticks (you can use ground cinnamon), cloves and star anise. Then add the zest from one of the oranges plus the orange juice together with the sugar. Heat gently to dissolve sugar and the simmer on low heat for 10 mins.

Serve whilst warm and add orange slices to decorate.

You can add a little brandy or Grand Marnier to give a little extra kick.