This book series aims to help researchers learn the newest and best com- putational chemistry methods. With publication of this volume, our sixteenth,
we have produced nearly 100 chapters written by approximately 200 of some of
the most well-known people in the field. In July 1999 we undertook a small
survey of our world-wide readership to find out what people thought about the
book series and what their suggestions were for improvement. A relatively
frequent suggestion from the respondents was "Keep it up!" We thank our
readers for their support and interest.
Collected in this volume are four chapters describing computational
chemistry tools that are useful for molecular design and other research applica-
tions. In terms of the number of computational chemists employed and the
amount of money spent on research, the largest component of the molecular
design field is the design of pharmaceutically interesting chemical structures.
Consequently, governmental policies that negatively affect pharmaceutical
companies can have a ripple effect on the job market for computational che-
mists and on their opportunities for doing research. The economic well-being of
computational chemists-whether in industry or in academia-is directly re-
lated to the health of the pharmaceutical industry.