The history of the PDB as a public resource for enabling science

Abstract

As the crystal structures of biological macromolecules were being determined, a new field of structural biology was born. Inspired by these new structures, the scientific community worked to establish a home to archive and share the data emerging from these experiments. The Protein Data Bank (PDB) was established in 1971 with seven structures. The PDB provides a repository for scientists who generate the data, and an access point for researchers and students to find the information needed to drive additional studies. Today, the PDB contains and supports online access to ~100,000 biomacromolecules that help researchers understand aspects of biology, including medicine, agriculture, and biological energy. The ways in which the interrelationships among science, technology, and community have driven the evolution of the PDB resource for more than forty years will be discussed. The PDB archive is managed by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwpdb.org), whose members are the RCSB PDB, PDBe, PDBj and BMRB.