(October 19, 2020) Congratulations to the Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) on being named a finalist for a 2020 .ORG Impact Award! The announcement was released by the Public Interest Registry, the organization behind .ORG, and included the top five entries across nine award categories. MolSSI was listed as a finalist in the “Combatting Coronavirus” category along with four other outstanding entrants.

Specifically, MolSSI is being recognized for its COVID-19 Molecular Structure and Therapeutics Hub, which was established in April 2020.  The Hub serves as a community repository for researchers to share their efforts and combine resources to tackle the ongoing pandemic.  Together with BioExcel, a European Centre for Excellence for Computational Biomolecular Research, MolSSI has been working to gather and disseminate critical information on the pandemic from the molecular sciences community. The repository is home to wide-ranging resources about COVID-19, including molecular structures, models, therapeutics, and simulations.

“The MolSSI was established to serve the global molecular sciences community,” wrote MolSSI director Daniel Crawford, who is also a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry. “Our Software Scientist team has done a superb job of helping to fulfill this mission by building the COVID-19 hub.”

The winners of the .ORG Impact Awards will be announced as part of an online experience, “The Ten Days of .ORG”, beginning November 30th.

"This is an outstanding honor and a testament to the MolSSI's role as nexus for science, education, and cooperation for the worldwide community of computational chemists,” said Crawford.

MolSSI’s response to the pandemic is not limited to establishing and curating the Hub. In May, the institute awarded five MolSSI COVID-19 Seed Software Fellowships to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to carry out research especially relevant to COVID-19.