The seventh blind test of crystal structure prediction: structure generation methods.

A seventh blind test of crystal structure prediction was organized by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre featuring seven target systems of varying complexity: a silicon and iodine-containing molecule, a copper coordination complex, a near-rigid molecule, a cocrystal, a polymorphic small agrochemical, a highly flexible polymorphic drug candidate, and a polymorphic morpholine salt. In this first of two parts focusing on structure generation methods, many crystal structure prediction (CSP) methods performed well for the small but flexible agrochemical compound, successfully reproducing the experimentally observed crystal structures, while few groups were successful for the systems of higher complexity. A powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) assisted exercise demonstrated the use of CSP in successfully determining a crystal structure from a low-quality PXRD pattern.

How many more polymorphs of ROY remain undiscovered.

With 12 crystal forms, 5-methyl-2-[(2-nitrophenyl)amino]-3-thiophenecabonitrile (a.k.a.

Repulsion-dispersion parameters for the modelling of organic molecular crystals containing N, O, S and Cl.

In lattice energy models that combine ab initio and empirical components, it is important to ensure consistency between these components so that meaningful quantitative results are obtained. A method for deriving parameters of atom-atom repulsion dispersion potentials for crystals, tailored to different ab initio models, is presented. It is based on minimization of the sum of squared deviations between experimental and calculated structures and energies.

Accurate and efficient representation of intramolecular energy in ab initio generation of crystal structures. I. Adaptive local approximate models.

The global search stage of crystal structure prediction (CSP) methods requires a fine balance between accuracy and computational cost, particularly for the study of large flexible molecules. A major improvement in the accuracy and cost of the intramolecular energy function used in the CrystalPredictor II [Habgood et al. (2015).

Report on the sixth blind test of organic crystal structure prediction methods.

The sixth blind test of organic crystal structure prediction (CSP) methods has been held, with five target systems: a small nearly rigid molecule, a polymorphic former drug candidate, a chloride salt hydrate, a co-crystal and a bulky flexible molecule. This blind test has seen substantial growth in the number of participants, with the broad range of prediction methods giving a unique insight into the state of the art in the field. Significant progress has been seen in treating flexible molecules, usage of hierarchical approaches to ranking structures, the application of density-functional approximations, and the establishment of new workflows and `best practices' for performing CSP calculations.

General computational algorithms for ab initio crystal structure prediction for organic molecules.

The prediction of the possible crystal structure(s) of organic molecules is an important activity for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries, among others, due to the prevalence of crystalline products. This chapter considers the general requirements that crystal structure prediction (CSP) methodologies need to fulfil in order to be able to achieve reliable predictions over a wide range of organic systems. It also reviews the current status of a multistage CSP methodology that has recently proved successful for a number of systems of practical interest.

The polymorphs of ROY: application of a systematic crystal structure prediction technique.

We investigate the ability of current ab initio crystal structure prediction techniques to identify the polymorphs of 5-methyl-2-[(2-nitrophenyl)amino]-3-thiophenecarbonitrile, also known as ROY because of the red, orange and yellow colours of its polymorphs. We use a methodology combining the generation of a large number of structures based on a computationally inexpensive model using the CrystalPredictor global search algorithm, and the further minimization of the most promising of these structures using the CrystalOptimizer local minimization algorithm which employs an accurate, yet efficiently constructed, model based on isolated-molecule quantum-mechanical calculations. We demonstrate that this approach successfully predicts the seven experimentally resolved structures of ROY as lattice-energy minima, with five of these structures being within the 12 lowest energy structures predicted.

Towards crystal structure prediction of complex organic compounds--a report on the fifth blind test.

Following on from the success of the previous crystal structure prediction blind tests (CSP1999, CSP2001, CSP2004 and CSP2007), a fifth such collaborative project (CSP2010) was organized at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. A range of methodologies was used by the participating groups in order to evaluate the ability of the current computational methods to predict the crystal structures of the six organic molecules chosen as targets for this blind test. The first four targets, two rigid molecules, one semi-flexible molecule and a 1:1 salt, matched the criteria for the targets from CSP2007, while the last two targets belonged to two new challenging categories - a larger, much more flexible molecule and a hydrate with more than one polymorph.

Successful prediction of a model pharmaceutical in the fifth blind test of crystal structure prediction.

The range of target structures in the fifth international blind test of crystal structure prediction was extended to include a highly flexible molecule, (benzyl-(4-(4-methyl-5-(p-tolylsulfonyl)-1,3-thiazol-2-yl)phenyl)carbamate, as a challenge representative of modern pharmaceuticals. Two of the groups participating in the blind test independently predicted the correct structure. The methods they used are described and contrasted, and the implications of the capability to tackle molecules of this complexity are discussed.

Can the Formation of Pharmaceutical Cocrystals Be Computationally Predicted? 2. Crystal Structure Prediction.

We report a multistage lattice energy minimization methodology for generating stable packing arrangements of cocrystals containing flexible molecules. In the first approximation, the intermolecular electrostatic interactions are modeled with atomic charges and the molecular deformation energy is interpolated over a set of precomputed quantum mechanical values. At subsequent stages, the accuracy is improved by first using analytically rotated and then conformation-dependent multipole moments, computed from the isolated-molecule charge density, and "on-the-fly" quantum mechanical calculations to compute the intramolecular deformation energy.

Ab initio crystal structure prediction-I. Rigid molecules.

A new methodology for the prediction of molecular crystal structures using only the atomic connectivity of the molecule under consideration is presented. The approach is based on the global minimization of the lattice enthalpy of the crystal. The modeling of the electrostatic interactions is accomplished through a set of distributed charges that are optimally and automatically selected and positioned based on results of quantum mechanical calculations.