Outreach and Education

RCSB PDB is a central resource in the global fight against SARS-CoV-2, the agent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The PDB is the primary repository of atomic structures of viral proteins and nucleic acids, providing the basic understanding that will be needed to discover new therapies and develop vaccines. RCSB PDB provides many resources to access and analyze these structures, and general resources to help understand the mechanisms of the viral life cycle and how they impact health.

A series of articles provides an introduction to how the biological macromolecules in the PDB are driving research and discovery related to SARS-CoV-2. A new feature article, Passive Immunization with Convalescent Antibodies, describes how purified antibodies may be used to treat infection by coronavirus.

The painting SARS-CoV-2 and Neutralizing Antibodies by David S. Goodsell shows a cross section through SARS-CoV-2 surrounded by blood plasma, with neutralizing antibodies in bright yellow. It was commissioned for the cover of a special COVID-19 issue of Nature.

Respiratory Droplet shows a cross section through a small respiratory droplet, like the ones that are thought to transmit SARS-CoV-2. The virus is shown in magenta, and the droplet is also filled with molecules that are present in the respiratory tract.

Goodsell's molecular landscapes are available from PDB-101 in a special SciArt Digital Archive. These watercolor paintings integrate information from structural biology, microscopy and biophysics to simulate detailed views of the molecular structure of living cells. These illustrations are free for use under CC-BY-4.0 license. Acknowledgement should be given as indicated for each illustration.

At this year's meeting of the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology Conference (ISMB), the award went to Aya Narunsky for

How proteins evolved to recognize an ancient nucleotide? Aya Narunsky (Yale University), Amit Kessel (Tel-Aviv University), Ron Solan (Tel Aviv University), Vikram Alva (Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology), Rachel Kolodny (University of Haifa), and Nir Ben Tal (Tel-Aviv University)
For more, see Narunsky, A., Kessel, A., Solan, R., Alva, V., Kolodny, R., & Ben-Tal, N. (2020). On the evolution of protein-adenine binding. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 117: 4701–4709. doi:10.1073/pnas.1911349117

Many thanks to Steven Leard (ISMB) for his continued support. This year's prize was judged by RCSB PDB's Stephen K. Burley and Sebastian Bittrich.

At this year's American Crystallographic Association's Annual Meeting, the RCSB PDB Poster Prize award went to Takahiro Yamauchi for

Crystal and Solution structures of Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen from Crenarchaeon Aeropyrum pernix Takahiro Yamauchi (Iryo Sosei University and Fukushima Rosai Hospital, Japan), Tsubasa Takemori, Makiko Kikuchi, Yasuhito Iizuka, Satoshi Ishikawa, and Masaru Tsunoda (Iryo Sosei University)

The judges also awarded an Honorable Mention to Ravi Yadav (Purdue University) for

Structural basis of Neisserial lactoferrin binding protein B function Ravi Yadav (Purdue University), Srinivas Chakravarthy (Argonne National Laboratory), Courtney Daczkowski (Purdue University), Nicholas Noinaj (Purdue University)