COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) today introduced major enhancements to its SciFinder(R) research tool. One new feature is SciPlanner(TM), a ground-breaking interactive workspace that enables scientists to more quickly identify synthesis options for designing the best research pathways and approaches. 

 SciPlanner allows users to create customized reaction pathways as well as organize and manage SciFinder results in ways they find most useful. Users can integrate reactions, experimental procedures, substances, and references from multiple documents. Specifically, the new tool enables researchers to: 

- For the first time ever, create complete reaction pathways from individual reactions across multiple publications that are indexed in the CAS databases. - Visualize and consolidate preferred reaction strategies in a single place and combine them with references, structures, reactions, and substances. - Create reports to share specific reaction pathways for assignment, distribution, and presentation to colleagues.

In addition, new convenience features have been added to SciFinder that allow users to:

- Sort reference answer sets by citation count to identify influential authors, research concepts, and potential collaborators. - Copy/paste ISIS/Draw structures directly into the SciFinder structure drawing editor to save time. - Extend searches to articles cited in Medline references with the addition of citation data to Medline records.

"SciPlanner is taking research to a new level," said Christine McCue, vice president of marketing, CAS. "It allows scientists to better leverage CAS' authoritative content by organizing search results the way they want to help them to create new pathways and arrive at decisions faster."

 http://www.cas.org/products/scifindr/index.html