Protein Data Bank
RCSB PDB (RCSB.org) is the US data center for the global Protein Data Bank (PDB) archive of 3D structure data for large biological molecules (proteins, DNA, and RNA) essential for research and education in fundamental biology, health, energy, and biotechnology.
The Protein Data Bank (PDB) was established as the 1st open access digital data resource in all of biology and medicine (Historical Timeline). It is today a leading global resource for experimental data central to scientific discovery.
Through an internet information portal and downloadable data archive, PDB provides access to 3D structure data for the molecules of life, found in all organisms on the planet.
Knowing the 3D structure of a biological macromolecule is essential for understanding its role in human and animal health and disease, its function in plants and food and energy production, and its importance to other topics related to global prosperity and sustainability.
The enormous wealth of 3D structure data stored in the PDB has underpinned significant advances in our understanding of protein architecture, culminating in recent breakthroughs in protein structure prediction accelerated by artificial intelligence approaches and deep or machine learning methods.
RCSB PDB (Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics PDB) operates the US data center for the global PDB archive, and makes PDB data available at no charge to all data consumers without limitations on usage (Policies).
The Vision of the RCSB PDB is to expand the frontiers of fundamental biology, biomedicine, energy sciences, and biotechnology through open and sustainable access to the 3D structure, function, and evolution of biological macromolecules contained in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) archive.
Recognized experts in fields, including but not limited to, structural biology, cell and molecular biology, computational biology, information technology, and education serve as advisors to the RCSB PDB.