The encyclopedia · R&D & Science · Technical decision · 1971
The Protein Data Bank made structural biology share one coordinate format
In 1971 Walter Hamilton built a common coordinate format for protein structures, the first open data bank in biology or medicine.
Brookhaven National Laboratory · Protein Data Bank · Worldwide Protein Data Bank
the move
In 1971, protein scientists used different coordinate systems, so a structure solved in one lab could not be understood in another.
At the June 1971 Cold Spring Harbor symposium the field agreed on one coordinate language, and Walter Hamilton of Brookhaven volunteered to build the database.
The Protein Data Bank launched in October 1971 with under a dozen structures, the first open-access digital data resource in biology or medicine.
why it works
- A single coordinate format let a structure solved anywhere be read and verified everywhere.
- It was made public and free, the first open-access digital data resource in biomedicine.
- Every deposit conformed to one schema, so cross-checking and replication became mechanical.
- Journals later required deposition, which turned the format into the field's common currency.
what transfers
A standard becomes essential when it lets a decentralized field compare results; the format is the collaboration.
what came after
The PDB grew to hundreds of thousands of structures, became the Worldwide Protein Data Bank, and journals and funders now require deposition; it underpins drug design and structural biology.
references
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