Getting the Most Out of SciFinder

SciFinder-n is a reference, substance, and reaction search engine which allows current Penn affiliates to search a complete, integrated set of Chemical Abstracts Service databases. These databases are useful for literature reviews and reference searching, substance synthesis and property information, and reaction data searches.

SciFinder-n includes (as of November 20th, 2024):

• CAS References on the world’s published scientific literature across disciplines including biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, materials science, agricultural science, and many more.  Sourced from thousands of journals and 64 patent authorities, and more than 59 million records from publications dating back to the early 1800s, with continuous coverage since 1907.
• Substances, including 204 million organic and inorganic substances, 69 million protein and nucleic acid sequences, and includes alloys, coordination compounds, minerals, mixtures, polymers, and salts.
• CAS Chemical Supplier Insights, for finding commercially available chemicals, including available quantities, prices, and supplier contact information.
• CAS Reactions, which covers ~150 million reactions from 1840 to present including organometallics, total syntheses of natural products, and biotransformation reactions, enhanced with yield data, detailed reaction conditions, and experimental procedures.
• Chemical Regulations, covering more than ~417,000 unique chemical substances and including information from 150 regulatory inventories and lists.
• CAS Markush Representations in Patents, with more than 1.39 million searchable Markush representations from >570,000 patents.

In addition, searches in SciFinder perform simultaneous searching of the NLM's complete MEDLINE database, as well as the legacy Chemisches Zentralblatt (ChemZent) database.

For more in-depth breakdowns on each database contained in SciFinder-n, please see the databases portion of this guide.

This guide will cover the overall use and different functionalities of SciFinder-n. This includes the most basic functions- such as text searching- to the more in-depth breakdowns of different databases and further covering advanced functionalities like Retrosynthetic Analysis.

Databases Covered -

A breakdown of the multiple databases contained within SciFinder-n's search functionalities, and descriptions of the types of data they contain.

Querying SciFinder -

Instructions on the best ways to format searches in SciFinder-n, including a breakdown of CAS Draw, the substance drawing tool.

Exploring References -

Instructions on the process of finding relevant literature in SciFinder-n, as well as how to refine and interpret results.

Exploring Substances -

Instructions on how to search for substance data in SciFinder-n, including breakdowns of substance-specific tools.

Exploring Reactions -

Instructions on how to search for reaction data in SciFinder-n, including breakdowns of helpful reaction-relevant tools.

Retrosynthetic Analysis -

Instructions on how to use the Retrosynthetic Analysis tool, which can aid in synthesis of a known or unknown substance.

Projects -

Instructions on using projects, a tool which may help to organize your research in SciFinder-n.