As a traditional structural biologist, I read with surprise your News Focus article ("Protein structure initiative: Phase 3 or phase out," by R. F. Service, 21 March 2008, p. 1610) on the supposedly limited payout of the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI). It may be true that the impact on the broader community of biologists has been limited so far, but this is due more to the three-dimensional (3D) structure blindness of many biologists than to the quality of the data generated.
In my opinion, scientists that criticize the current PSI are mistaken, as the payout is already substantial in the form of radically new methods and a good number of new structures. In the future, it will only be more so, as increasing numbers of biologists are using 3D protein structural information. At the same time, computational biologists are starting to find innovative ways to use the data, and this will grow exponentially during the next few years. I think the PSI should be maintained (perhaps not expanded) and continued funding be given to most, if not all, of the currently funded centers. At the same time, projects to train biologists in interpreting 3D protein structure data, and to train structural biologists to better communicate their data, would complement the PSI effort. Stopping the PSI while the number of new structures produced per year is still increasing would be extremely counter-productive.
Mark J. van Raaij
Department of Structural Biology, Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona, Spain.
E-Letters: ![[Read E-Letter]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif){kind=icon}
