OVERVIEW & PLANS FOR THE BROOKHAVEN PROTEIN DATA BANK. J.L. Sussman, Brookhaven National Laboratory, P.O. Box 5000, Upton, NY, 11973-5000 USA and Dept. of Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is an archive of experimentally determined three dimensional structures of biological macromolecules, serving a global community of researchers, educators, and students. The challenges presented by the enormous growth in data over the past several years have been met by the PDB staff and management, which now provides an up-to-date archive, while simultaneously expanding network access (Stampf, Felder & Sussman, Nature 374, 572-574, 1995) and building strong world-wide collaborations (Peitsch, Stampf, Wells & Sussman, TIBS 20, 82-84, 1995). Even larger challenges are at hand, as the deposition rate continues to rise along with the expectations of the consumers of these data. We are enhancing the capabilities of the PDB and transforming it into a new Three-Dimensional Biomacromolecular Structure Database, while retaining many of the features of the PDB, for compatibility.

Over the course of the next few years, we plan to:

* Ensure that the archive remains current, correct, and relevant.

* Provide a rapid and painless automated deposition system, using internationally agreed-upon CIF standards.

* Enhance data validation tools.

* Build a relational database to store and provide flexible access to the information.

* Integrate the PDB with complementary biological and chemical databases through semantic links and schema sharing.

* Provide easy access, through the Internet, to the PDB at BNL and other deposition and distribution sites worldwide.

The PDB is supported by a combination of Federal Government Agency funds and user fees. Support is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of General Medical Sciences, National Library of Medicine, and the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-76CH00016.