Professor Johan Gasteiger, the first speaker in the Colloquium, stated three of the fundamental questions in chemistry: what structure do I need for a certain property?, (2) how do I make this structure?, and (3) how do I synthesize this and characterize this compound? Answers to the first question involve structure-property or structure-activity relationships, to the second question involve synthesis design, and to the third question involve reaction prediction and structure elucidation. In many instances, answers to these questions can be found in the vast amount of data stored in publicly accessible databases, which contain information on millions of compounds, their structures and reactions, as well as many of their chemical and biological properties. Because of the size and complexity of this data, chemoinformatics tools are essential if one is to utilize this information effectively in order to answer important chemical questions (vide supra) .