What’s New
We’re delighted to introduce new enhancements that improve accuracy, performance, and flexibility in version 26.0 of ChemDraw Desktop. This release focuses on more efficient chemical property calculations, expanded HELM rendering capabilities, updated atomic standards, and extended Python support. We have also addressed several bugs to ensure a smoother experience.
ChemDraw Desktop
- Chemistry Improvements
- Advanced Biopolymer (HELM) Improvements
- Extended Python Support
Chemdraw Desktop
Chemistry Improvements
A stereochemical warning is now shown when a stereo bond originates from a non-stereo atom, improving structural validation.
When viewing structures in 3D, selection highlighting is suppressed while dragging so that depth and perspective shading are easier to observe.
Chemical property calculations now run more efficiently, allowing you to continue drawing and editing seamlessly, even with large structures.
LogP calculations support up to 150 heavy atoms or 50 fluorine atoms, while other property calculations support up to 1,000 atoms.
Element atomic weights have been updated to IUPAC 2024 standards for Gadolinium, Lutetium, and Zirconium.
HELM Improvements
ChemDraw now supports hairpin structures in oligonucleotides. When hydrogen bonds are drawn between complementary bases within a single sequence, cleanup automatically forms the corresponding hairpin loop. Monomers within the hairpin can also be expanded and contracted. Pendant chemical and peptide attachments are also supported.
Visual clarity for crosslinking between sequences has been enhanced, with bonds now vertically aligned whenever possible to minimize unnecessary wrapping between sequences.
ChemDraw now allows users to draw biopolymers with multiple complementary RNA strands for a single sense strand. When a set of hydrogen-bonded RNA sequences is created, ChemDraw detects the strands, and appropriately places each complement beneath the sense strand according to hydrogen bond positions on clean up. The sense backbone is stretched as needed to minimize overlap, enabling side-by-side display of complements with proper alignment.
Selecting a routed bond between sequences now highlights the entire bond rather than only the center section.
Python Support
ChemScript now supports Python version 3.14, giving developers greater flexibility for integration and automation.