QSAR DataBank - an approach for the digital organization and archiving of QSAR model information

Villu Ruusmann, Sulev Sild, Uko Maran

Research efforts in the field of descriptive and predictive Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships or Quantitative Structure-Property Relationships produce around one thousand scientific publications annually. All the materials and results are mainly communicated using printed media. The printed media in its present form have obvious limitations when they come to effectively representing mathematical models, including complex and non-linear, and large bodies of associated numerical chemical data. It is not supportive of secondary information extraction or reuse efforts while in silico studies poses additional requirements for accessibility, transparency and reproducibility of the research. This gap can and should be bridged by introducing domain-specific digital data exchange standards and tools. The current publication presents a formal specification of the quantitative structure-activity relationship data organization and archival format called the QSAR DataBank (QsarDB for shorter, or QDB for shortest).