Hi Russell! Actually there is no need to contact us to get ChimeraX for noncommercial use (personal, educational, nonprofit) -- you can simply download the program from the website and use it. Similarly for any collaborators as long as their use is noncommercial. I appreciate your wish to doublecheck with us, however. Here is the standard (noncommercial) download page: <https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/download.html> Next it should show you the text of the academic license with an "Accept" button at the bottom of the page, and all you have to do is to click it to continue the download: However, if the system is not showing the academic license, and instead it is asking for you to enter a commercial license key, it is because it detects you are downloading from a commercial site. Some people said that their VPN was causing this problem. To avoid the problem, first make sure to turn off your VPN first, or if that isn't the problem, try downloading from a different location (home instead of university, university instead of home, etc.) Good luck with your educational journey and your adventures in molecular modeling! Regards, Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco
On Aug 28, 2025, at 3:57 PM, Russell Couch via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
Hello UCSF! My name is Russell and I am a 17 year old student seeking approval from the developers to use ChimeraX in the publication of educationally-intended (not commercially-intended) content I would like to design using the program and animate separately. I would like to use ChimeraX to, for example, compile individual proteins into a complete infectious pathogen in order to demonstrate the roles of individual proteins in the process of infection, disease progression, and possible treatment. I want to firmly state that my personal purpose of the publication is educational, though I understand YouTube is inherently a commercial platform. When complete, the videos would be uploaded to a brand new, unmonetized channel dedicated to my educational publications. There would be no other co-collaborators, as in people frequently working with me and using ChimeraX to produce educational content. This is a personal project and I would be the only one using the program to produce my content. If another creator wanted to collaborate with me using their own research and resources (assuming they have all the proper permission like I'm asking for), would that be allowed, assuming the collaboration is occasional and on a per-video basis rather than consistent or unifying, such as two channels deciding to join together?
On a bit of a more personal note, I am applying to college soon and am very interested in a couple of colleges in California. I am very passionate about engineering, particularly chemical engineering, and I believe the cures of tomorrow are waiting to be discovered. I am on a mission to discover them and make them available to all. While I am determined to be the change I want to be no matter where I go, I would like to attend a good engineering school if possible, and am personally very attracted to the idea of going to college in California. Some of the very best engineering schools in the country are in California, and getting into them would be a dream come true, though I am realistic and prepared to achieve my goals without any of their external resources. These resources, while valuable, mean nothing without the internal drive to strive. Regardless of acceptance, the colleges in California most intriguing to me are UCB, Caltech, and Stanford, though UCSD, Irvine, Davis, and many other schools there all have fantastic engineering programs, and are more statistically favorable in terms of acceptance, though still quite selective. I know UCSF is a medical school, but it shares with these colleges very high selectivity, and I would love to gather any potential advice, especially coming directly from another top college. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my request and am very excited to use ChimeraX, whether for personal or educational use.
Sincerely, Russell Couch _______________________________________________ ChimeraX-users mailing list -- chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu To unsubscribe send an email to chimerax-users-leave@cgl.ucsf.edu Archives: https://mail.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/archives/list/chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu/
