PubChem
PubChem is an open chemistry database website from the National Institutes of Health for exploring chemical compounds, substances, properties, bioassays, safety data, and programmatic chemical information.
What PubChem is
PubChem is an open chemistry database website at pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov from the National Institutes of Health. It helps users search chemical compounds, substances, structures, identifiers, properties, biological activity, patents, safety information, and related records.
Open chemistry database
PubChem describes itself as an open chemistry database. Open access matters here because chemical information is useful to researchers, students, educators, software developers, health professionals, and the public, but the meaning of a record still depends on its source and context.
Compounds and substances
A compound record focuses on a distinct chemical structure, while substance records can reflect information submitted by different data providers. That distinction helps PubChem connect standardized chemistry views with depositor-supplied names, identifiers, annotations, and source-specific details.
Properties and annotations
PubChem records can include molecular structures, formulas, synonyms, identifiers, computed and experimental properties, spectra, patents, literature links, health and safety information, toxicity annotations, and biological activity data. These layers make the site useful for both quick lookup and deeper chemical investigation.
Bioassays
Bioassay data connects chemicals with biological tests and measured activity. This is especially important in cheminformatics, chemical biology, medicinal chemistry, toxicology, and drug discovery, where researchers need to compare chemical structures with observed biological effects.
APIs and programmatic access
PubChem provides PUG REST documentation and tutorials for programmatic access. Developers can use these web services to retrieve chemical structures, properties, identifiers, images, and other data for research workflows, teaching tools, notebooks, and chemistry software.
Submissions and data sources
The database accepts submissions about chemical structures, annotations, and bioassay test results. PubChem's contributor model is powerful because it brings together information from many sources, but users should still inspect provenance, units, dates, and the reliability of any specific annotation.
Why it matters
PubChem matters because chemistry depends on names, structures, identifiers, measurements, and context staying connected. A public website and API make chemical information easier to find, cite, reuse, teach, and combine with biomedical and scientific datasets.
WHOIS domain data
Data pulled: June 1, 2026View current WHOIS record
- Website host
- pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- WHOIS domain
- nih.gov
- IP address
- 156.40.212.210
- Registrar
- get.gov
- WHOIS server
- whois.nic.gov
- Referral URL
- https://get.gov
- Created
- October 2, 1997
- Updated
- March 4, 2026
- Expires
- August 22, 2026
- Nameservers
- ns.nih.gov (128.231.128.251); ns2.nih.gov (128.231.64.1); ns3.nih.gov (165.112.4.230)
- Domain status
- serverTransferProhibited
- DNSSEC
- signedDelegation
- Contact privacy
- Registrant, administrative, and technical contact details are redacted in the Who.is record.