JBuilder Project Preview: Oxford Molecular Group PLC

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Project Preview

OXFORD MOLECULAR GROUP PLC
Oxford, England

COMPANY BACKGROUND
Oxford Molecular Group PLC is a worldwide provider of solutions for discovery research to chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies and universities. Using the company's wide range of computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) software, advanced bioinformatics tools, cheminformatics solutions, and collaborative research services, researchers can reduce both cost and time, expediting discovery across multiple disciplines. Customers include Glaxo Wellcome, Merck, Hoffman LaRoche, Procter & Gamble, Rhone Poulenc Rorer, and many others. Oxford Molecular is headquartered in Oxford, England, with offices in Erlangen, Germany, and six U.S. locations, with sales operations around the world.

SITUATION
Oxford Molecular (OM) provides pharmaceutical and chemical companies with software that stores and searches chemical structure information for hundreds of thousands of compounds. The information is stored in "connection tables" in an Oracle database. (Oracle is a de facto standard in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry.) The table is built using a complex notation scheme that translates the interconnection of individual atoms in a molecule to a digital record that can be stored in a database. When chemists identify parts of chemical structures that are in some way interesting, say a ring of six interconnected atoms, they can search the database to find other compounds containing the same interesting part. For example, a particular compound is known to have analgesic (pain-killing) properties, and it looks like the active agent is a particular set of atoms. The chemist searches for other compounds containing a set of atoms in the same configuration, because those compounds might be effective pain-killers, too. Database searches are also used to find building blocks to create new compounds, and to check whether they have been created before.

Connection tables are typically an alphanumeric listing of atoms and bonds or connections between atoms, but chemists work with molecular diagrams-a picture. A major component of OM's software solution automatically draws diagrams from the connection table data. OM initially utilized ActiveX and PlugIns to perform the task, but the process was awkward and limited to the Windows platform (for ActiveX). The company felt that a solution using Java would give the advantage of being cross-platform and cross-vendor compatible, while they could reuse it in other client tools, not just Web-based tools.

SOLUTION
OM experimented with several Java tools, including Visual J++, but found that whenever they needed to do something more complex or data intensive, like employing a grid or tree structure, they could do it better with JBuilder. In fact, developers found that in the area of IDE design, JBuilder was better by far than other Java tools they looked at. JBuilder has enabled the company to deploy applets and applications that will make it easy for its worldwide customer base to migrate to a Java solution. Using JBuilder and Java, OM has established a clear competitive advantage over other companies' proprietary offerings. OM supports connection tables stored in four formats, and the OM drawing engine enables customers to use their own preferred drawing programs to produce publication-quality diagrams, rather than the very simple drawings produced by other systems.

KEY ADVANTAGES

Java approach provides all the capabilities typically found in PlugIns and ActiveX solutions but has the advantage of being cross-platform and cross-vendor compatible.
JBuilder made it easier to create this application because of its class browser, debugger, client tools, and IDE.
JBuilder enabled OM to produce a drawing engine that produces publication-quality drawings for connection tables stored in several vendors' formats, not just one proprietary system.
The Model-View architecture of JBuilder JBCL tools provided a fast, intuitive way to associate drawing classes with the Oracle data stream.

TECHNOLOGY

Legacy system		Oracle Web Server with ActiveX and PlugIns
Database server		Oracle
Application size		100,000 lines of code

DEVELOPMENT

Tool used		JBuilder Client/Server
Team size		2 developers
Timeline		8 months. Application deployed April 1998

CUSTOMER COMMENTS
"Using JBuilder, we were able to provide all the capabilities of PlugIns and ActiveX, but with a cross-platform advantage. JBuilder delivered database functionality and other important capabilities that other tools couldn't."

—Joe McDaniel, Department IT Manager,
Oxford Molecular

PARTNER CONTACT
Partner contact.