Completed Cells, Biochemistry & Physiology Plants, Animals & Ecology

Protein Data Bank in Europe.

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation European Bioinformatics Institute
Funding £1.9M
Period Jan 2010 — Jan 2015

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Every day, scientists around the world rely on a single digital archive in Europe to look up the 3D shapes of more than 55,000 proteins and other biological molecules. The Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe) stores this structural data—gathered from X-ray, NMR, and cryo-electron microscopy experiments—and makes it freely available to researchers in cell biology, biotechnology, and drug design. Without this central repository, each lab would have to solve molecular structures from scratch, dramatically slowing the discovery of new medicines and the understanding of disease mechanisms. The archive is jointly managed with partners in the US and Japan, but PDBe handles the European share of data deposition and database operations. This grant funds six core staff members and replaces the computer equipment needed to keep the databases running. The challenge is that the volume of incoming data could quadruple in the coming years, driven by new techniques such as small-angle scattering. This funding secures Europe’s role in maintaining and evolving a resource that quietly underpins much of modern biomedical research.

View original technical description
The Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe) is one of the five core databases hosted at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). PDBe holds knowledge about the structure and function of >55,000 biomacromolecules and complexes. This information is vital for research and development efforts in areas such as cell biology, biotechnology and drug design and provides insight into the molecular basis of biological processes in health and disease. The single archive of structural information about biom acromolecules (including X-ray, NMR and cryo-EM and tomography data) is managed jointly by PDBe and 3 other institutions in the USA and Japan under the aegis of the worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). This proposal is for funding of 6 of the 15 core PDBe staff involved in processing data-depositions and running the core databases, and a refresh of the equipment needed to run these databases. This core activity provides the basis for the unique services rendered by PDBe. With the challenges faci ng the archive (possible quadrupling of data-deposition load, inclusion of new techniques such as SAXS and SANS) support for the core activities is crucial for the operation of PDBe and for securing Europe's stake in the evolution of the unique structural archive.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Gerard Kleywegt (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Protein Data Bank in Europe - an integrated resource for 3D molecular and cellular structure.
PDBe - Facilitating Open Science in Structural Biology
CIBR 19-BBSRC-NSF/BIO: Next generation PDB - FACT infrastructure with value added FAIR data supporting diverse research and education user communities
Supporting archival and dissemination of small-angle scattering data for atomistic structures in the PDB
FunPDBe - enhancing structural and functional annotation of macromolecular structure data in the PDB by collaboration and integration

Original classification

Biomedical Resources Grant

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.