Newswise — Piscataway, N.J. and Cambridge, U.K.—Oct. 31, 2013—The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) and the Center for Integrative Proteomics Research (CIPR) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, announce today that they have formed a new public-private partnership, which sees the CCDC establish operations in North America housed within the CIPR alongside the RCSB Protein Data Bank. Coincident with formation of this new partnership is the launch of CCDC Inc., which will serve the CCDC’s user communities across North America. The new CCDC organization will collaborate with scientists at the RCSB Protein Data Bank and the CIPR to develop and implement new integrated approaches to scientific discovery, working closely with academic and industrial partners.
The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre compiles and distributes the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), the world’s only comprehensive resource for small molecule crystal structure data, to more than 1,200 academic and 200 commercial organizations worldwide. Approximately half of the members of the CCDC’s user communities are based in North America. The new CCDC Inc. operation at Rutgers will bring expert application science support in the areas of small molecule crystallography, drug discovery and development, and materials science directly to the CCDC’s user communities throughout North America. Paul Davie has been appointed to head the new operations, becoming General Manager of CCDC Inc.
The Center for Integrative Proteomics Research is a new 75,000-square-foot facility on the Busch Science Campus of Rutgers University dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary structure-function studies of complex biomolecular phenomena. Center members include internationally recognized Rutgers faculty, leading research groups focused on computational chemistry, structural biology, mechanistic enzymology, and bioinformatics. The Center is the home of the RCSB Protein Data Bank. In addition, the CIPR serves as headquarters of the BioMaPS Institute for Quantitative Biology, with its interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, and houses core facilities for NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, and cryo-electron microscopy.
The Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank is a member of the wwPDB, which is responsible for managing the Protein Data Bank archive--the single global repository for experimental structures of biological macromolecules with nearly 100,000 entries. The RCSB Protein Data Bank provides tools and educational materials worldwide for advancing research and education by curating, integrating, and disseminating biological macromolecular structural information in the context of biological function and processes, biochemical pathways, evolution, and disease. The Protein Data Bank archive is used intensively by many thousands of research scientists, teachers, and students around the world in studies of biology, biochemistry, and medicine.
Stephen K. Burley, Director of the CIPR, Associate Director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank, Director of BioMAPS, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Member of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey expressed his excitement about the new initiative: “My Center colleagues and I are delighted to welcome members of the CCDC to Rutgers. We look forward to a long and productive partnership, which will enhance our interdisciplinary research efforts on biomolecules large and small and deliver new synergies between the RCSB Protein Data Bank and the CCDC”.
Colin Groom, Executive Director of the CCDC made clear the importance of this new partnership by adding: “Research scientists in discovery seldom rely on small molecule or target structural information alone – they need reliable data in both areas, of course. This new collaboration with CIPR and the RCSB PDB will allow us to develop and implement new integrated approaches to discovery, based on the latest validated data from reliable sources. We hear continually from our partners about the importance of developing efficient workflows across data domains – this collaboration sees the potential of great steps forward towards this vision.”
S. David Kimball, Associate Vice President for Translational Science in the Rutgers Office of the Vice President of Research and Research Professor in the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, played a central role bringing the contractual arrangements to fruition in short order. He reflected on the broader impact of the new partnership by pointing out that “cooperative interactions between the CCDC and the Rutgers materials science community represent another important avenue for synergy.”
The collaboration starts this month, with the arrival of the CCDC Inc. at the CIPR on the Busch Campus of Rutgers University.
About The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre: The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) was established in 1965. It supports drug discovery and development through its Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), the world’s only comprehensive and fully-curated database of small molecule crystal structures, containing more than 650,000 entries, and through knowledge-based tools to support receptor modeling, ligand design, docking, lead optimization and formulation studies. Its database and modeling systems are in use at research operations worldwide, including over 1,200 academic institutions and all of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies.
Originating in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, the CCDC is a fully independent institution constituted as a non-profit company and a registered charity since 1989. The CCDC is financially independent, supported entirely through annual subscriptions received for the Cambridge Structural Database System and industry-leading software such as GOLD and Relibase+. The CCDC has a strong track record in basic research through more than 700 peer-reviewed publications; these papers have attracted more than 18,000 citations in the international scientific literature. More than 1,500 CSD applications papers by non-CCDC authors have been similarly well received.
About Rutgers: Established in 1766, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is America’s eighth oldest institution of higher learning and one of the nation’s premier public research universities. Serving more than 65,000 students on campuses, centers, institutes and other locations throughout the state, Rutgers is the only public university in New Jersey that is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) is the health care education, research, and clinical division of Rutgers University, comprising nine schools and their attendant faculty practices, centers, institutes and clinics; New Jersey’s leading comprehensive cancer care center; and New Jersey's largest behavioral health care network.
For additional information please contact:Paul Davie, CCDC Inc.: [email protected], www.ccdc.cam.ac.ukStephen K. Burley, CIPR: [email protected], proteomics.rutgers.edu
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