Leave it to Spiders and their peers to pave the way for others in terms of research — like chemistry professor Carol Parish who is teaming up with colleagues from Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Florida on a $1 million National Science Foundation-funded project to develop a central portal for the molecular sciences.

Dubbed the “Alexa of Chemistry,” their project is one of the first in the United States to be selected as part of a NSF pilot program called the Convergence Accelerator. Using data algorithms similar to companies like Amazon or Google, the team plans to build an open network that will allow users to easily access molecular sciences data.

“There are many laboratories around the world working in this space, but there are few organizational structures available that encourage open sharing of this data for the benefit of the common good,” Parish said.

Congratulations to Dr. Parish and team for being ahead of the curve!