MESSAGE FROM THE RCSB PDB

In July 2004, the RCSB PDB released a reengineered website and database (pdbbeta.rcsb.org) for public beta testing. The underlying database consists of curated mmCIF files resulting from the data uniformity project, which allows for improved query access to the unified data.

Thanks to feedback sent from users, this website is constantly being refined and enhanced. Some of the features of this site are described in this newsletter, and in previous newsletters.

The beta RCSB PDB website, along with tools for deposition, will be demonstrated at the wwPDB exhibit stand (Booth number 12) at this year's XX Congress & General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr; August 23 - 31 in Florence, Italy). Our wwPDB partners MSD-EBI and PDBj will also demonstrate their websites and we will all be available throughout the exhibition to meet with PDB users. A roundtable discussion about data mining from the PDB will be held on August 27 with presentations from Helen M. Berman, Kim Henrick, Haruki Nakamura, and Philip E. Bourne. Other wwPDB-related activities at this meeting will be announced on the RCSB PDB website. We look forward to seeing you there.

The RCSB PDB

wwPDB collaborators Kim Henrick (Head, MSD-EBI) and Helen M. Berman (Director, RCSB PDB) will be at the upcoming IUCr meeting