Published quarterly by the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank

Message from RCSB PDB

Throughout 2021, RCSB PDB and the wwPDB celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the PDB.  Symposia were held (virtually) around the world, highlighting high-impact applications of protein structural data. 

Videos of presentations are available from the inaugural PDB50 meeting hosted by ASBMB in May; the Biophysical Society-hosted symposium in October; and the Protein Data Bank at 50: Accessing, Understanding, and Assessing PDB Data workshops hosted by the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group in November (day 1 and day 2).

In July 2021, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., who represents New Jersey's 6th district that includes Rutgers University, noted the 50th anniversary of the PDB in the Congressional Record (HTML |PDF).

Visit RCSB.org/pdb50 for the archive of all PDB50 celebration materials, including 

During this 50th anniversary year, consider supporting the PDB's spirit of openness, cooperation and education with a donation to the wwPDB Foundation.  The Foundation is chartered as a 501(c)(3) entity exclusively for scientific, literary, charitable, and educational purposes.

In Memoriam

For more than 25 years John D. Westbrook, (1957 - 2021; obituary) supported Rutgers, RCSB PDB, and millions of data users worldwide with his vision and passion for innovative databases, ontologies, and other technologies for management of complex biological data. As Data & Software Architect Lead of the RCSB PDB, John was central to the design and development of infrastructure and services to acquire, curate, archive, and deliver 3D macromolecular structure data to the broad community of PDB users. His work also established the PDBx/mmCIF data dictionary and format as the foundation of the modern Protein Data Bank (PDB) archive.

John D. Westbrook Jr (1957–2021) Acta Cryst (2021) D77: 1475-1476 doi:10.1107/S2059798321011402.

New SARS-CoV-2 PDB structures and related resources are updated regularly at rcsb.org/covid19

Corona virus 3D model