Access to ChEMBL web services via workflow tools



As some of you may know, besides the ChEMBL web interface and the SQL dumps, there is a another way to access and retrieve data from your favourite public database, namely the RESTful web services. We have already provided API examples there using Java, Python and Perl but, as of today, we also provide examples for popular pipelining / workflow tools, such as Pipeline Pilot and KNIME.


The user base of such tools is certainly growing, as they offer modularity, flexibility, transparency and higher integration and sharing capabilities compared to programming or standard software packages. In fact, demand for tighter integration between ChEMBL and these tools was one of the outcomes of our recent Workflows workshop. Indeed, using the web services via a workflow tool is a seamless way to search, retrieve, integrate and analyse data without having to install, maintain and update local databases or write, dreaded for some, SQL queries.


We have posted some useful examples on the Pipeline Pilot and KNIME community fora, which are available to download.

If there is interest expressed in the comments below, we can also provide a webinar, say on Tuesday 31 July 2012 at 3pm.