The Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) is an ongoing effort begun in 2000 to accelerate discovery in structural genomics and contribute to understanding biological function. Funded by the U.S. National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), its aim is to reduce the cost and time required to determine three-dimensional protein structures and to develop techniques for solving challenging problems in structural biology, including membrane proteins. Over a dozen research centers have been supported by the PSI for work in building and maintaining high-throughput structural genomics pipelines, developing computational protein structure prediction methods, organizing and disseminating information generated by the PSI, and applying high-throughput structure determination to study a broad range of important biological and biomedical problems.
The project has been organized into three separate phases. The first phase of the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI-1) spanned from 2000 to 2005, and was dedicated to demonstrating the feasibility of high-throughput structure determination, solving unique protein structures, and preparing for a subsequent production phase. The second phase, PSI-2, focused on implementing the high-throughput structure determination methods developed in PSI-1, as well as homology modeling and addressing bottlenecks like modeling membrane proteins. The third phase, PSI:Biology, began in 2010 and consists of networks of investigators applying high-throughput structure determination to study a broad range of biological and biomedical problems.
Read more about Protein Structure Initiative: Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Impact, Criticism, External Links
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