Press releases

• Drug-proof zebrafish reveal secrets of addiction
  
  
• Gene map aims to combat blood flukes
  
  
• Mean new microRNA data analysis method gives sharper results
  
  
• Closing the gaps in the human genome
  
  
• Cohesin jigsaw begins to fit
  
  
• New cow genome sequence released: assembly freely available to all scientists
  
  
• A new approach improves prioritization of disease-associated SNPs
  
  
• Life isn't 2D, so why should our encyclopaedias be? - Proteopedia
  
  
• Cancer signatures uncovered
  
  
• Human brains pay a price for being big
  
  
• Guidelines to prevent genetic discrimination
  
  
• Gene-expression profiling of the effects of liver toxins
  
  
• Large-scale community protein annotation - WikiProteins
  
  
• Mapping of prostate cancer genes opens the door to new treatments
  
  
• Break it down: genome sequence of Podospora anserina reveals unsuspected ability to use complex carbon sources
  
  
• Supplements are not nutritious
  
  
• On the trail of rogue genetically modified pathogens
  
  
• Scientists unravel the genetic coding of the pea
  
  
• New gene prediction method capitalizes on multiple genomes
  
  
• Generating antibodies in high throughput
  
  
• Blind mice shed light on human sight loss
  
  
• Bar flies: fruit flies help unravel the genetics of alcohol sensitivity
  
  
• Decoding effects of toxins on embryo development
  
  
• Free shopping in a virtual bazaar of gene regulation data
  
  
• Umbilical cord gene expression signals premature babies' lung disease risk
  
  
• The molecular signature of loneliness
  
  
• Air pollution link to clogged arteries
  
  
• The sound of proteins
  
  
• 'Drunk' fruit flies could shed light on genetic basis of human alcohol abuse
  
  
• Predicting chemotherapy outcome
  
  
• New species from old data
  
  
• Fruit flies unlock Methuselah's secrets
  
  
• Comparisons of the new mouse genome sequence
  
  
• Making sense of the human genome: researchers characterize a crucial family of signaling proteins in the human genome
  
  
• Stanford researchers argue that there is indeed a biological base for race
  
  
• Genomic study breathes new life into asthma research
  
  
• Why does a worm need nearly as many genes as a man?
  
  
• Genomes on 'chips' boon to cancer research
  
  
• BioMed Central is pleased to announce the publication of Sydney Brenner's autobiography
  
  
• A genomic blueprint for a sense of smell
  
  
• Researchers to publish a third historic human genome article in Genome Biology this week
  
  
• Human Genome project leaves much of human variation unsampled
  
  
• Diagnosis on a chip - molecular profiling that could improve diagnosis and help design better drugs
  
  
• Gene "shaving" could help doctors predict the efficacy of cancer treatments
  
  
• Whither genomics?
  
  
• Current Science Group declares support for 'PubMed Central' historic development
  
  
• Science publishing - beginning of a revolution?
  
  

Life isn't 2D, so why should our encyclopaedias be? - Proteopedia

Biologists and biochemists are now able to access 3D images of biomacromolecules underlying biological functions and disease. Rather than relying on text to provide the understanding of biomacromolecule structures, a collaborative website called Proteopedia now provides a new resource by linking written information and three-dimensional structural information. The wiki web resource, first described in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, displays protein structures and other biomacromolecules in interactive format. These interactive images are surrounded by descriptive text containing hyperlinks that change the appearance (such as view, representations, colors or labels) of the adjacent 3D structure to reflect the concept explained in the text. This makes the complex structural information readily accessible and comprehensible, even to people who are not structural biologists.

The resource was developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel by Jaime Prilusky, Eran Hodis, and Joel L. Sussman, together with colleagues at the Weizmann Institute and in the USA. According to Sussman, "Using Proteopedia, anyone can easily create descriptions of biomacromolecules linked to their 3D structure."

Aside from content added by Proteopedia's existing users, pages on each of the more than 50,000 entries in the Protein Data Bank have been automatically created with 'seed' information, creating pages that are already useful and primed for expansion by users. Members of the scientific community are invited to request a user account to edit existing pages and to create new ones.

Hodis says, "We are presenting Proteopedia to the scientific community to judge its usefulness and merit, and we truly hope that it will offer an effective and appealing way to convey the link between 3D structure and function."

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Article:

Proteopedia - a scientific 'wiki' bridging the rift between three-dimensional structure and function of biomacromolecules

Eran Hodis, Jaime Prilusky, Eric Martz, Israel Silman, John Moult and Joel L Sussman

Genome Biology 2008, 9:R121.

http://genomebiology.com

Please quote the journal in any story you write, and link to the article if you are writing for the web.

For more information about this study, or about the journal, contact Graeme Baldwin by email at graeme.baldwin@biomedcentral.com or by phone on +44 (0) 20 7631 9980.

Please quote the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's Open Access policy.

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Genome Biology publishes articles from the full spectrum of biology. Subjects covered include any aspect of molecular, cellular, organismal or population biology studied from a genomic perspective, as well as genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, genomic methods (including structure prediction), computational biology, sequence analysis (including large-scale and cross-genome analyses), comparative biology and evolution. Genome Biology has an impact factor of 6.59.

BioMed Central, (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.