Protein repository opens

NIH announced the creation of a new materials repository to facilitate the sharing of resources developed from its Protein Structure Initiative (PSI). Since it started in 2000, the 10-year initiative has helped determine the structures of proteins with the goal of understanding their roles in health and disease for better drug development, NIH says. The repository will build on the initiative's progress by storing and shipping PSI-generated DNA sequence clones and expression clones, which researchers can use to make specific proteins for structural and functional studies. Sponsored by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at NIH, the repository will be operated by the Harvard Institute of Proteomics, which will receive $5.4 million in funding over five years for the effort. "The first five years of PSI were devoted to developing methods, technologies, and pipelines to speed the structure production process and reduce its cost," NIGMS Director Jeremy M. Berg says. "The products of these efforts have been available to the scientific community, but the new resource should dramatically enhance accessibility," he notes.