9510694 Sussman The award will support the continued operation and further development of the Protein DataBank (PDB), a unique international database of three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules at atomic resolution. The staff of the database are located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The goals of the project are to provide an easily accessible, user friendly resource of service to an international community of researchers including crystallographers, theoreticians, modelers and other investigators who are interested in such structures. The PDB will continue efforts to facilitate deposition and retrieval of entries, and will emphasize use of newer database methodologies for storage and access. Use of the World Wide Web will play a key role in these efforts. In addition, the database will cooperate closely with databases at Rutgers University and at the European Bioinformatics Institute, as well as with a number of secondary distributors within the U.S. and in other countries. The study of structure and function of biological macromolecules at the atomic level is one of the most technically challenging and intellectually demanding areas of modern biology, and is a central aspect of the new biotechnology industry. The structures of nearly 4000 macromolecules have now been determined and deposited in the PDB. The role of the PDB in making these structures available to researchers with diverse interests through the internet and other means of distribution is critical to the advancement of both basic and applied biology. Additional support for the PDB is provided through separate actions by the Office of Health and Energy Research of the Department of Energy and by the National Library of Medicine and National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding between these agencies and the National Science Foundation. ***
