Structural Genomics Consortium

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The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) is a not-for-profit organization that aims to determine the three dimensional structures of proteins of medical relevance, and place them in the Protein Data Bank without restriction. The SGC operates out of the Universities of Oxford and Toronto and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. In the period from July 2004 to June 2007, the SGC succeeded, ahead of schedule and below budget, in meeting its goal of depositing the structures of 384 proteins from its Target List of ~2,000 proteins, to achieve a deposition rate of 200 structures per year and to reduce the cost/structure to below USD$125,000. The Target List comprises proteins that have relevance to human health and disease, such as proteins associated with diabetes, cancer, and infectious diseases such as malaria. Research at the SGC is divided into three areas: structural genomics of soluble proteins, structural genomics of integral membrane proteins, and structural chemistry of soluble proteins.

The SGC is unique in its international framework. Each geographical site works on a number of different protein families, focusing primarily on human proteins. Collectively, SGC scientists have deposited close to 300 protein structures in just over 2 yrs of research - an unprecedented pace.

Pursuit of protein families provides process synergy and can potentially generate structural and functional trends. The SGC has contributed a great number of structures from protein families such as dehydrogenases, kinases, 14-3-3 proteins, sulfotransferases and more recently histone demethylases.

Structural genomics is sometimes criticized for mass production of protein structures without accompanying functional elucidation. Such critics point to a relatively lower ratio of publications to structures, compared to other labs. With over 40 journal publications and over 600 structures deposited in the PDB, the SGC may be an exception to this trend.

Funding for phase II of the SGC from 2007 to 2011 comes from diverse groups, including the Wellcome Trust, GSK, Novartis, Merck and the Canadian and Swedish governments.

The SGC is headed by Aled Edwards. Operations at each site are managed by a Chief Scientist - Cheryl Arrowsmith in Toronto, Canada; Chas Boutra in Oxford, UK and Mats Wikstrom in Stockholm, Sweden.

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