Dear Michel， It is very interesting for you telling us so many stories about the study of chemical information which took place in France and your university.
As an information researcher, I once was invited to deliver a speech on Information Science at a meeting about chmoinformatics here a few years ago; I found their interests are far different from mine. Their main concerns are what information technology can be applied to chemistry――It seems as if you like this one according to your introductory post.But what we are eager to know is where the chemical information exists and how it functions between two molecules or supermolecules. As a matter of fact, I found there are three kinds of studies about information in chemistry. 1. Chmoinformatics: A study about how to manage and compute chemical information, such as management of chemical abstracts, retrieval of chemical information through internet, molecules represented by graphs, data mining etc. there are many books like this in the bookstore. Of course, this may not be a subject that could arouse real interests among true information researchers, because there are thousands of applications of information technology in different areas, it is difficult for us to call all these applications of information technology as informatics or information science. 2. Chmoinformatics: A study about how chemical information function between two molecules or two supermolecules, according to the terms in biology and chemistry: between substrate and receptor, or in coordination chemistry: between donor and acceptor, or host and guest, we can only consider this thought as a conjecture which proposed by Jean-Marie Lehn of University Louis Pasteur――the noble prize winner of 1987. As a matter of fact, we all know that in the process of molecule reaction and recognition, an intelligent is in esse. This has been proved by Fischer’s lock-and-key model early in 1894. 3. Semiochemistry: A study about chemical information materials that mediate interactions between members of different species. This study consider pheromone, quinonyl compounds etc. as messengers. It is an interdiscipline of chemistry and biology. We especially want to know what advance about the second study about chemical information in chemists has made recent years. Because Lehn said in many places: “Supramolecular chemistry (chmoinformatics) has paved the way toward apprehending chemistry as an information science”. Best wishes, Xueshan Yan Peking University, FIS Beijing Group
_______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
