Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) and Rutgers Partner
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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 Center for Integrative Proteomics Research (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 Rutgers' Busch Campus 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.”
Stephen K. Burley, Director of Rutgers' CIPR
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.”
