n e w s of t h e
week
Protein structure data bank on the move A contract to oversee a growing database of 8,200 biological macromolecular structures is expected to be shifted from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) to a consortium of Rutgers University; the University of California, San Diego's Supercomputer Center; and the National Institute of Standards & Technology. The Protein Data Bank was created in 1971 by a small group of crystallographers at the Department of Energy's Brookhaven lab. Over the years, the Long Island lab has guided its development into a powerful tool used worldwide by an expanding number of structural biologists, other scientists, and students, says F. William Studier, chairman of the lab's biology department. The bank provides online, three-dimensional structural views of the atomic makeup of 7,500 proteins, some 600 nucleic acids, and a handful of carbohydrates. Its web site has logged 2.5 million visitors since May 1994. Brookhaven scientists, Studier says, were "stunned" by the decision. Although small in size with just 15 employees and a budget of some $2 million annually—provided by the National Science Foundation, DOE, and the National Institutes of Health—the bank is important, unique, and prestigious. Its loss comes at a hard time for Brookhaven's new management team as it struggles to improve its relationship with DOE and the community (C&EN, Jan. 5, page 19). Funders were reluctant to comment on the shift, but BNL scientists and others say they have been notified that the change is pending. "Negotiations are going on now, and no final decision has been made," says Mary E. Clutter, NSF assistant director of biological sciences, who is directing the award of the contract. She said an announcement may be made in "perhaps several weeks." She notes the current cooperative agreement runs through October 1999 and emphasizes that "we do not intend to make this disruptive." The expected winner is formally called the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics. Each of its member institutions has years of related experience, says Helen Berman, a chemistry professor and director of the Nucleic Acid Database at Rutgers and principal investigator for the project. Berman also was unwilling to comment in detail until an agreement is final. 14 SEPTEMBER 7, 1998 C&EN
Both competitors had "pluses and minuses," says Sylvia Spengler, a computational biologist at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and chairman of a peer review committee that assessed proposals to run the bank. However, she says the consortium's proposal would afford user scientists a more searchable database and one that could answer more complex queries. But she stresses that these views are her own and not necessarily the committee's. Berman says the consortium has developed a "quite powerful query engine" that will allow, for instance, searches for structures with a variety of characteristics or groups with specific features. The need for a relational data management system is not lost on Studier. However, he says BNL has been hit over the last decade by an "explosion" of scientists seeking to add structures to the bank. As a consequence, in the last few years, he says, BNL has overhauled its mechanisms to deposit and provide quick access to structures to appease scientists unhappy with what sometimes had been lengthy delays. Today, he says, some 1,200 structures are deposited annually, using a mostly automatic system that allows immediate access. The lab, Studier says, has now turned its attention to developing a better data management system. However, that system will not be fully operational until next year, about the time the current agreement expires. Jeff Johnson
Rlchardson: long-haul commitment
oratories, which include Los Alamos, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Berkeley, Pacific Northwest, and Ames, as well as Livermore. The labs will provide tests and research that would be too expensive and specialized to be conducted by FBI crime labs, Murch says. He described a two-part program in which, initially, the FBI will recommend research topics to DOE, but soon DOE will develop its own technological approaches to FBI needs. Once a technological apparatus is developed, the FBI's role will be to disseminate the new devices and approaches to the entire crime lab community, Murch explains. Several projects identified by Richardson and Murch for development in the early phase of the program pertain to portable devices that allow chemical sampling of small amounts of evidence in the field while avoiding contamination and ensuring that chain of custody is maintained. These devices include a portable gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer instruSeven Department of Energy national lab- ment to identify substances at a crime oratories will provide technological aid scene; a thin-layer chromatography systo the Federal Bureau of Investigation as tem, which DOE says is particularly sensiit steps up activities to fight terrorism. tive to low nanogram concentrations of The labs' new direction was explained explosives; and sampling systems using ulby Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on trasensitive absorbent filters contained inAug. 27 at the Forensic Science Center at side a handheld syringe. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Murch expects funding and the level in California. The announcement came on of activity to increase. He laid out a map the heels of Richardson's first-day-on-the- for future research that encompasses job speech to DOE employees in which tools from microrobotic sensors to multihe emphasized the nation's "long-haul" variate statistical analysis techniques. commitment tofightingterrorism. That the FBI would turn to DOE isn't About $5 million has been earmarked too surprising. FBI Lab Director Donald M. for the counterterrorism R&D program Kerr spent nearly 17 years at Los Alamos, this year, says Randy Murch, deputy as- including six years as its director, before sistant director of the FBI crime laborato- leaving in 1985 (C&EN, Nov. 10, 1997, ry. Murch says some 27 projects have page 15). been identified for work at the DOE labJeff Johnson
FBI, DOE labs team up to fight terrorism
