The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) has archived its 500,000th small molecule crystal structure to the Cambridge structural database (CSD). Since it was started 45 years ago, the database has become a cornerstone of structural chemistry research and has helped researchers to design molecules and gain insight into molecular interactions and bonding. Today, the CCDC archives approximately 150 new experimentally determined structures each working day!

The 500,000th structure archived in the database is that of the anti-convulsant drug Lamotrigine, (CSD reference code EFEMUX01) published by Balasubramanian Sridhar and Krishnan Ravikumar of the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad. Organic structures only make up 43% of the database, with the remaining 57% being metal-organic structures. 

Look out for live links from CCDC structure references in RSC online articles! These handy links lead to the relevant webpages of the WebCSD where the structures can be visualised. Click on the CCDC number links in the example article below to see this useful tool in action.

Also check out the CIF Data Importer: a new tool in RSC author templates for importing crystallographic structure data from a CIF file as a formatted table or footnote.