The world is full of chemicals. It’s astounding the number of chemical compounds that have or share common structural, functional, chemical, pharmaceutical, and biological properties, but that have massively different effects on humans and the environment. Similar chemicals used in pharmacological settings can have marked metabolic differences. Likewise, related chemicals can also have vastly varying impacts on the Earth and its countless delicate ecosystems.

Toxicologists, pharmacologists, environmental managers, and anyone else who consistently works with chemicals know that when researching, there may be a glut of information on one substance, but then there are massive data gaps that must be bridged in order to have complete and thorough research. This is why chemical analogs have become paramount and to saving industry experts time and money when it comes to:

• Read across
• Alternative assessments
• Unnecessary testing
• Economics/supply

How to Search for Chemical Analogs:

1. PubChem

Pros: Produced by the NIH, PubChem is an industry standard when searching for analogous chemical, physical properties, structure, and reaction. With information on about 140,000 different compounds, PubChem can be very helpful tool researching and testing chemical products and how they relate to the environment.

Cons: Numerous chemicals can be found on PubChem based on their structure and not on their attributes. A different search is needed for each related chemical to better understand their individual attributes. This is time consuming, overwhelming, and can become expensive when dealing with testing and research man-hours.

2. EPA Chemistry Dashboard

Pros: This chemical analog serves multiple audiences – leaning toward health & safety researchers, not just chemical safety researchers.

Cons: The EPA Chemistry Dashboard has a flood of information to sift through, making research slow and arduous. This database also pulls from PubChem content and while it has more health & safety attributes, the user experience is not very intuitive and it is busy to read.