IBM Research will be one of a growing number of Protein Data Bank users as it begins to characterize the complete contents of the archive using its newly discovered hydrophobic ratio. The primary PDB website at www.rcsb.org/pdb received an average of 125,984 hits per day in the first quarter of 2001, up from 89,532 in the first quarter of 2000.
Initially established at Brookhaven National Laboratories in 1971 with seven structures, the PDB is now maintained by the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics and contained 14,910 structures as of April 17.
The PDB has witnessed astounding growth since its inception. The number of structures deposited per year averaged 21 during the 1970s, 57 during the 1980s, and 1247 during the 1990s. The average annual growth rate of available structures increased from 15 percent in the 1980s to 38 percent in the 1990s.
The table below details the holdings of the PDB as of April 17.