"How am I going to make this molecule?" is one of the questions a synthetic chemist will ask themselves almost daily. Retrosynthesis is essentially working backwards from a target molecule to determine how it can be synthesized, ideally from commercially available starting materials. Historically, this has been a manual process, requiring days or weeks of literature review, sifting through old notes, and separate searches just to confirm which reagents are commercially available and from which vendor. With the SYNTHIA® + Luma connector, this now happens in minutes, inside an end-to-end connected workflow.
Typically, chemists can generate several possible synthetic routes relatively quickly. However, evaluating them efficiently remains a common bottleneck. Common pain points include:
Route reviews scattered across lab books, software tools, and supplier websites;
Constant switching between systems, requiring context to be rebuilt each time;
Gaps in documentation and traceability between when an idea is conceptualized and when the experiment is executed.
Bridging retrosynthesis and experimental context into one workflow starts with SYNTHIA® and Luma.
Meet SYNTHIA® + Luma
SYNTHIA® is a retrosynthetic software developed by MilliporeSigma, the Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. It uses more than 115,000 expert-coded reaction rules to generate ranked synthetic pathways from a specified target molecule.
Luma is Dotmatics’ connected scientific data platform, allowing researchers to work within a unified ecosystem, connecting experiment planning, traceability, and collaboration across teams. Working within Luma ensures a structured data foundation, meaning the context and metadata associated with experiments is retained. This enables scientists to work in a connected environment, where everything is auditable, easily parsed, and available for inter-departmental collaboration.
How SYNTHIA® + Luma Works
The SYNTHIA® + Luma connector gives researchers a single, design-to-execution workflow for synthetic chemistry, instead of a patchwork of disparate tools (Figure 1):
Users submit a target molecule directly within Luma;
SYNTHIA® returns up to 50 ranked synthetic pathways;
Once an approach is selected, SYNTHIA® drafts a synthetic route, and Luma AI prepares an experimental protocol;
An ELN experiment can be created directly within your ELN of choice.
These steps are all performed within Luma, without the need to leave or re-enter the unified ecosystem. Additionally, a separate SYNTHIA® license is not required, as the connector provides direct access to the retrosynthetic capabilities.
Figure 1. The major steps involved in using the SYNTHIA® + Luma connector, from submission of a target molecule to the creation of an ELN experiment.
Why adding retrosynthesis to a unified ecosystem matters
Together, SYNTHIA® and Luma offer (Figure 2):
Faster, better decisions. Fewer handoffs, quicker route evaluation, and predictions grounded in real experimental context.
Greener chemistry. Fewer synthetic trial runs, meaning less waste and solvent usage.
Faster time to value. A pre-built connector, with no lengthy manual installation required.
AI-enhanced decision making. Complexity flagging for tricky synthetic pathways, plus the ability to surface colleagues with prior experience in similar transformations or key intermediates.
With Luma, this type of knowledge no longer lives in people’s minds or in their disconnected lab books.
Figure 2. Key advantages of using the SYNTHIA® + Luma connector, compared to traditionally, mostly manual retrosynthetic experiment planning.
We meet you where you are
Whether you’re working in a synthetic, biotech, or pharma lab, SYNTHIA® and Luma can meet you where you are with your lab capabilities. If you are:
Currently a Luma customer, you can bring synthetic route generation directly into the existing Luma workflows your team already uses, enriched by your own experimental context;
Currently a SYNTHIA® customer, you can connect your retrosynthetic routes to experiment planning, traceability, and collaboration across different teams;
Starting fresh, you can build an end-to-end, connected workflow from retrosynthesis to the creation of an ELN entry.
Contact us for a demo of how the SYNTHIA® + Luma connector works with your unique molecules. Want to see it in action first? Watch our on-demand webinar here.