Education of Information Chemistry in a Bioscience-Related Department

Abstract

An example of one-semester course for the introduction to information chemistry is presented for the junior students in a bioscience- or biotechnology-related department, together with their curricular background. The course consists of information search for scientific documents and molecular computation. The former includes introduction of the structure and function of abstract databases for scientific documents. An exercise on subject search is afforded with Chemical Abstracts and an instruction on an electronic search is made with Enjoy JOIS. The latter is focused on determination of molecular structures with molecular mechanics and molecular orbital calculation, with Hueckel MO method as an example. Theoretical background of each calculation method is briefly introduced and practical study is also afforded. Planned expansion of the covering area of the course in the future is shown and problems underlying is discussed in relation to the intellectual background of students in bioscience/biotechnology departments.