With every advance in technology that scientists use to explore the detail of the natural world, there is a corresponding surge in the amount of data for researchers to analyse. One of the first to realise that setting up a central repository for such data would stimulate further discovery was the crystallographer Olga Kennard, who has died aged 98. The Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), which she launched in 1965 and managed for 32 years, is now an essential resource for researchers in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and materials as well as basic researchers in universities around the world.
Crystallography is a method of discovering the arrangement of atoms within a molecule by analysing patterns of X-rays diffracted by crystals of the substance under study. Working in a Cambridge University department, but without the security of a university position or college fellowship, Kennard established the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) in 1965. At the same time she set up the CSD, taking on the task of converting the 3,000 or so known X-ray structures of small organic molecules into machine-readable form.
