CAS History
CAS was founded on the need to share research globally to advance the scientific enterprise. With the publication of Chemical AbstractsTM (CA), a journal of the American Chemical Society, CAS helped scientists benefit from the published work of their colleagues around the world by monitoring, abstracting, and indexing the world's chemistry-related literature.
Over the years, CAS has evolved to become the world's authority on scientific knowledge management, providing the global innovation community with access to the most current scientific information available. We do this via specialized technology and expertise to support the integration of scientific data and application of emerging information technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.
CAS Timeline
William A. Noyes became the first editor of Chemical Abstracts (CA), which debuted in January 1907. In its first year of publication, CA contained fewer than 12,000 abstracts. CA was first published at the U.S. Bureau of Standards. Later, the offices moved to the University of Illinois, Urbana.
CA’s editorial operation was moved to the campus of the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
CA became Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and an operating division of the American Chemical Society.
A new era in scientific research dawned with the introduction of the CAS Chemical Registry System. Using a unique CAS Registry Number® to identify each chemical substance without the ambiguity of chemical nomenclature, the system proved to be a boon to chemical research, health and safety information, and the communication of chemical information.
CAS management and technical teams devised an automated processing system that not only produced printed CA issues and indexes more efficiently, but also fed a computer-readable database that could generate new kinds of services. CAS was an early adopter of the new photocomposition technology and later produced services in print, microform, and magnetic tape.
CAS ONLINE was launched, making it possible for users (primarily information specialists) to search the CAS REGISTRY® database. Users with a specific model of an intelligent graphics terminal could select structure features from a menu and assemble them on the terminal monitor using a graphics tablet and stylus. These terminals could display answers with well-drawn structure diagrams.
ACS and FIZ Karlsruhe cooperated in forming an international online network. STN®, the scientific and technical information network, was launched the next year. The network made databases accessible through distributed processing on a global scale. At first, only CAS databases and physics briefs were accessible but grew to include many databases from several information providers.
STN Express® software provided assisted searching at the desktop and soon became the preferred interface for STN users.
CAS introduced the SciFinder® research tool to give scientists direct access to CAS databases with no need to learn a command language. With its intuitive, graphical interface, SciFinder simplified the exploration of the world's scientific literature, patents, and substance information, making this activity "part of the process" for scientific research.
CAS recognized the possibilities of the Internet to speed and simplify access to source documents. ChemPort® was introduced to CAS and STN electronic services in 1997 to provide links to full-text journal articles and patents identified via online searching.
CAS continued to develop electronic services to make scientific information more accessible and useful. STN® AnaVist™ was introduced by CAS and FIZ Karlsruhe to enable the analysis and visualization of search results.
CAS celebrated its 100-year anniversary and was recognized by the American Chemical Society as an ACS National Historic Chemical Landmark.
The web version of SciFinder was released, providing users with enhanced search capabilities and instant access to CAS database content from anywhere in the world.
The CAS REGISTRY database registered its 50 millionth substance, marking a significant milestone for CAS and the entire scientific community. The scientific knowledge amassed and chronicled in REGISTRY by CAS scientists enables continued discovery by chemists and researchers around the globe.
The United States Patent Office awarded CAS a five-year sole source contract for STN, stating in its solicitation letter that "CAS' STN databases offer the largest collection and depth of chemical and related information compared to other commercial web-based databases. In addition, CAS is the only company that has a unique, proprietary, chemical structure searching capability using its STN Express software. No other source can successfully meet the USPTO's requirements."
The 60 millionth substance was recorded in CAS REGISTRY for a patent application submitted to the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China. CAS observed in 2009 that China surpassed all other nations as the top producer of chemical patent applications. Coming less than two years after CAS REGISTRY crossed the 50 million mark, this major milestone showed the continued acceleration of chemical and scientific output across the globe.
CAS and FIZ Karlsruhe announced Version One of the new STN platform in beta for fixed fee customers. This was the first major milestone in a multi-year initiative to create the next generation of STN, the choice of patent experts™. CAS also registered the 70 millionth substance, a therapeutic patent from Korea. Patents continue to be an important source of chemical information.
CAS registered the 75 millionth substance from a chemical catalog in CAS REGISTRY. SciFinder content and functionality were enhanced with a streamlined design, a new non-Java CAS Structure Editor, API integration, and collaborations with Springer, Thieme Publishing Group, and PerkinElmer, among others. The new STN platform had two version releases that included core STN content, global patent content, and new functionality. The 2013 Inventory of Existing Chemical Substances in China was added to CHEMLIST®, the CAS database containing international regulatory information for chemical substances.
CAS and PerkinElmer released their shared research solution, pairing SciFinder with ChemDraw® software, the drawing tool of choice for chemists. Global value pricing options were introduced for STN. CAS expanded coverage of reactions from dissertations in CASREACT®.
CAS registered the 100 millionth chemical substance in CAS REGISTRY, in its 50th anniversary year of the world’s largest database of unique chemical substances. CAS released three new solutions during the year: PatentPak®, a patent workflow solution available in SciFinder and classic STN; NCI™ Global, a regulatory solution; and the CHEMCATS® Chemical Supplier Program. CAS continued its commitment to global research and business development, adding dedicated sales and support representatives around the world.
CAS released three new solutions during the year: MethodsNow®, ChemZent™, and SciFindern. CAS offered a complimentary beta version of Chemistry Class Advantage™, a new learning solution for undergraduate organic chemistry students that launched in 2017.
The launch of retrosynthetic planning in SciFinder drastically reduced the time required by chemists to identify the most efficient synthetic paths for target compounds. The AI-based algorithm identifies multiple potential routes informed by the CAS collection of over 145 million known chemical reactions.
To support global patent offices’ efforts to reduce application backlogs, CAS pioneered a multifactored, algorithmic approach to assess the degree of similarity between patent documents. First piloted by INPI Brazil and later implemented in CAS SciFinder and CAS STNext®, this technology plays a critical role in more efficient prior art searches.
The CAS solutions portfolio expanded into life sciences with the launch of the CAS BioFinder Discovery PlatformTM, a transformational solution that accelerates the pre-clinical drug discovery process. CAS BioFinderTM enables drug discovery researchers to find impactful insights quickly and reliably by exploring a robust collection of curated life sciences data and using predictive models to understand the likely effects of novel drug candidates.