Structural Genomics, Round 2

摘要

As NIH plans to extend its high-speed structural biology program for another 5 years, researchers remain divided on how to best allocate its shrinking budget. Five years ago, facing some opposition, the US. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, launched an ambitious effort that some have compared in scale and audacity to the Human Genome Project Its ultimate goal: to obtain the three-dimensional structures of 10,000 proteins in a decade. Like the genome project, this effort, called the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), could transform our understanding of a vast range of basic biological processes. And just as the genome project attracted debate and dissent in its early days, the initiative split the structural biology community. The effort is now approaching a critical juncture, and the debate is heating up again.