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2018 News

The 2018 ACA CryoEM Workshop

The Cryo-EM Workshop: A Guide to High Resolution Structure Determination was held on July 21, 2018 as part of the ACA Annual Meeting in Toronto. Materials from the workshop can be accessed through the links below.
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ORCIDs To Become Mandatory for OneDep Contact Authors

The wwPDB OneDep system will require contact authors to provide their unique ORCID identifiers later this summer.
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OneDep Improvements to Data Replacement Prior to Release; Privacy Policy Update

The new version of OneDep improves the process of data replacement for PDB and EMDB entries, prior to their release. In addition, we have udpated the wwPDB privacy policy.
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Coming Soon: Expansion of EMDB's Accession Code Numerical Range

Due to rapid growth, EMDB is running out of 4 digit accession codes. Going forward, EMDB accession codes will have a variable format for their numerical portion.
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Structures Sought for CASP13

Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) community experiments aim to advance the state of the art in protein structure modeling. The thirteenth CASP round is scheduled to start on May 1, 2018. The organizing committee is particularly keen to include cryo-EM-derived structure targets in this round.
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JSB Special Issue on Outcomes of the CryoEM Challenges

In collaboration with the Journal of Structural Biology we are in the process of producing a special issue on the 2016 Map and Model Challenges, with Wah Chiu and Cathy Lawson serving as the guest editors.
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2017 News

2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Cryo-electron Microscopy

Congratulations to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson, who have received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing cryo-electron microscopy, a technique that allows scientists to visualize the structural details of biological molecules and gain insights into how living systems function.
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Joint Challenges Wrap-Up Meeting Oct 6-8

In 2016 EMDataBank ran two community challenges in parallel to create awareness of the need for cryoEM structure validation as a routine process in research studies and publications, and to expedite development of quantitative tools for assessment. The Map and Model Challenges were developed by cryoEM and modeling community experts, respectively, who have been charged with developing challenge tasks, promoting worldwide participation, evaluating the results, and producing a report.
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Revise Your Structure Without Changing the PDB Accession Code and Related Changes to the FTP Archive

The wwPDB is planning to introduce in 2017 a new procedure for the management by the Depositor of Record (where the Depositor of Record is defined as the Principal Investigator for the entry) of substantial revisions to previously released PDB archival entries.
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Enriched PDB Structure Entry Files Conforming to OneDep Data Standards Are Now Available for Testing

On July 12, 2017, the wwPDB partners plan to update the PDB FTP archive with PDB structure entry files conforming to V5.0 of the PDBx/mmCIF dictionary, which already supports the global wwPDB system for Deposition, Biocuration, and Validation of PDB data - OneDep.
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Trends in EMDB

As part of the Proceedings of the CCP-EM Spring Symposium, Ardan Patawardhan (PDBe) provides an overview of trends affecting the field of cryo-EM, making use of data available in the EMDB archive. Have a look here.
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The paper describing wwPDB OneDep system is now available

The paper describing wwPDB OneDep system is now available. The wwPDB has deployed a unified system for deposition, biocuration, and validation of macromolecular structures globally across all wwPDB, EMDB, and BMRB deposition sites to meet the evolving requirements of the scientific community to archive structural data over the coming decades.
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EM Archives to be Mirrored in China

19 January 2017: This week, a delegation from the Society of Chinese Cryo Electron Microscopy (SCCEM) visited EMBL-EBI to discuss how cryo-EM data in EMDB and EMPIAR could be made available to users from within China.
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2016 News

Remediation of 3DEM Entries in the Protein Data Bank

The wwPDB and the EMDataBank/Unified Data Resource for 3DEM Project have collaborated to update the experimental methods descriptions of all electron microscopy and electron crystallography-derived structures in the PDB archive. With this work now completed, all 3DEM-derived entries have better-organized content and conform to the revised data model developed by our team for use within the wwPDB OneDep System.
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Map Challenge Assessment Phase is Now Open

The Assessment Phase of the Map Challenge is now officially open, and all are welcome to participate. The Challenge Phase (July 2015-Apr 2016) was a tremendous success, with 66 submitted maps spread across the 7 image data benchmark targets.
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Remediation of 3DEM Entries in the Protein Data Bank

The wwPDB and the Unified Data Resource for 3DEM Project (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26578576) are collaborating to update the experimental methods descriptions of all electron microscopy and electron crystallography-derived structures in the PDB archive.
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wwPDB Validation Server Now Available for 3DEM Model Coordinates

The new wwPDB Validation Server at https://validate.wwpdb.org now generates preliminary validation reports for structures solved by NMR and 3D Electron Microscopy, in addition to X-ray crystallography.
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Announcement: Map Volume Deposition to EMDB Will Be Mandatory for PDB Depositions of 3DEM models Starting September 6th, 2016

Effective September 6th, 2016, deposition to the PDB of atomic models determined by 3D Electron cryo-Microscopy (3DEM) will require prior or simultaneous deposition of the associated 3DEM volume maps to EMDB.
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New NMR and 3DEM Validation Reports for Archived PDB Structures

The wwPDB Partners and our team are pleased to announce that validation reports for all Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and 3D Cryo Electron Microscopy (3DEM) structures already represented in the global PDB archive have been publicly released.
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EMDep, AutoDep, ADIT Deposition Systems to Be Retired, Effective September 30th 2016

Starting May 31st 2016, the legacy deposition systems EMDep, AutoDep, and EM-ADIT will no longer accept new EMDB and PDB submissions. Depositors with in-progress sessions on the legacy systems will be able to access and complete their deposition sessions until September 30th 2016.
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Coming Soon: New NMR and 3DEM Validation Reports for Archived PDB Structures

2nd International Conference on Image Analysis in 3D Cryo-EM

The second International Conference on Image Analysis in Three-dimensional Cryo-EM, will be held at Granlibakken Conference Center, Lake Tahoe, California from March 30 to April 2, 2016. The second workshop in this series will again focus on cutting edge techniques for image analysis in Cryo-EM.
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wwPDB Deposition & Annotation System Now Available for 3DEM Structures

The wwPDB partners and our team are pleased to announce the launch of a new Deposition & Annotation system that supports structures determined using 3DEM, NMR, and X-ray, neutron and electron crystallography.
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2015 News

New Publications

New open access articles about our project and EMDB access are now available online, in advance of publication in the upcoming January 2016 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue.
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SDSC Offers Supercomputer Resources; Map Challenge Submission Deadline Extended

Nov 9, 2015: We have two major announcements regarding the ongoing Map Challenge.
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Announcing the 2015 Model Challenge

All members of the Scientific Community--at all levels of experience--are invited to participate as Challengers, and/or as Assessors.
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Announcing the 2015 Map Challenge

All members of the Scientific Community--at all levels of experience--are invited to participate as Challengers, and/or as Assessors.
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2014 News

EMPIAR: Raw Data Image Archive

EMPIAR (Electron Microscopy Pilot Image ARchive; http://pdbe.org/empiar) is a public archive for raw image data (micrographs, particles, and tilt-series) related to EMDB entries. Important uses of EMPIAR data include validation and as test-data for methods development and teaching.
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Tilt Validation Server

The PDBe tilt-pair validation web-server is now available from: http://www.pdbe.org/tiltpair. You can use this service to perform a tilt-pair analysis on your own data.
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Scientific Programmer Openings (PDBe)

The EMDB team at the Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe) has two vacancies for scientific programmers to work on an exciting new MRC and BBSRC funded project to help bridge the worlds of cellular and molecular structural biology.
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Raw Image Data Pilot Archive

June 2014: Our Partner PDBe was recently awarded funding by MRC and BBSRC to set up a public archive for raw image data (micrographs, particles, and tilt-series) related to EMDB entries. The archive currently contains 7 datasets related to EMDB map entries, including a few multi-frame direct electron detector datasets.
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Please Participate: 3D Volume Segmentation Survey

Our Partner PDBe (EBI) and their collaborators at the Science & Technology Facilities Council in Daresbury are developing a web service as part of the BioMedBridges project that will enable the EMDB and PDB archives to be searched on the basis of 3D volumetric shape matching, rather than solely on the basis of metadata and/or coordinate models. The PDBe/STFC Biomedbridges team requests your input on 3D volume segmentation, which in many cases will be a necessary step before volume matching.
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Growth of EM Structural Data

A record number of EM structural data entries were released in 2013: 544 EMDB maps, and 236 EM-PDB models. The overall size of the EM structural data archives has also substantially increased.
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2013 News

International Conference on Image Analysis in 3D Cryo-EM

The first International Conference on Image Analysis in Three-dimensional Cryo-EM, to be held at Granlibakken Conference Center, Lake Tahoe, California from March 12 to March 15, 2014. The goal of the Symposium is to discuss state of the art image analysis approaches to tackle challenging biological problems and to identify current limitations and remaining problems in the field as currently practiced.
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Web-based visualisation and analysis of 3DEM data

Recent improvements to web-based visualisation and analysis of 3DEM data from EMDB and PDB are described in an open access article published in the November issue of the Journal of Structural Biology.
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EMDB Release Policy Poll

We have created a short online poll to collect your opinions about a possible change to EMDB data release policy. Should complete experimental metadata associated with EMDB map entries continue to be available/searchable prior to map release?
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September 2013: 3DEM Deposition Rate, Journal Policies

The use of 3D cryo-electron microscopy reconstruction (3DEM) methods to experimentally determine structures of biological macromolecules, complexes and machines is rapidly increasing in the structural biology community. For journal articles reporting new 3DEM structures via single particle, helical, electron crystallography, and sub-tomogram averaging methods, we find that the overall map-deposition rate to EM Data Bank (EMDB) is approaching 70%. However, the rate varies significantly per journal, and tends to be highest for journals with well-defined and consistently enforced 3DEM deposition policies in place.
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wwPDB Announcement: Deposition and Release of PDB Entries Containing Large Structures

In order to meet the challenges of ever greater numbers of PDB depositions, involving ever larger and more complex structures, often determined using multiple methods, the Worldwide Protein Data Bank partners (wwPDB; http://wwpdb.org/) are developing a completely new system for deposition and annotation of PDB entries.
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Announcement: EMDB header format update

On 16 January 2013, the EMDB archive plans to adopt an updated format, v.1.9.0, for the entry header file (XML file associated with each map). This means that EMDB header files distributed from wwPDB partner sites will conform to the 1.9.0 format, and our deposition/annotation/search services will start using this format.
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2012 News

September News

Changes to FTP access for map data: reminder

As we announced early in the year, the EMDB map archive is now distributed alongside the PDB archive by all three wwPDB partner sites. To download or retrieve EMDB map or header files, please go to one of the three current distribution sites.
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Cryo-EM Modeling Challenge Biopolymers Special Issue

The September 2012 special issue of Biopolymers "2010 Cryo-EM Modeling Challenge" is now online. The issue contents include an editorial and eight articles describing results from the 2010 cryo-EM modeling challenge.
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Twelve golden rules for deposition of EM data in EMDB and PDB

Every now and then depositors of EM data approach us with questions (or gripes) about the deposition process, in particular when both a map and a model are to be deposited.
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Proposed Deposition Requirements for Tomographic Data

Tomographic data deposition was the main topic of an informal afternoon meeting at the 2012 3DEM GRC that drew ~20 conferees.
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CCP-EM Positions Available

A new MRC Partnership grant to provide computational support for UK scientists using electron cryo-microscopy for structural biology will aim to create a new Collaborative Computational Project, CCP-EM. Two excellent, motivated computational scientists are sought to support the Partnership grant and CCP-EM project. For details please view the full announcement here.
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EM Data Bank joins the PDB archive

7-March-2012: The EM Data Bank (EMDB), the primary archive for experimentally-determined maps obtained using three-dimensional electron microscopy methods, has joined the PDB archive (ftp://ftp.wwpdb.org), as announced previously.
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A vision for validation of 3DEM maps and map-derived models

We are pleased to announce the publication of the outcome of the first Electron Microscopy Validation Task Force (EM VTF) meeting in the journal Structure: Henderson et al., Structure (2012).
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Announcement: Meeting on Hybrid Methods

The 6th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Supramolecular Assemblies by Hybrid Methods will be held March 14-18, 2012 in Lake Tahoe, CA.
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EM Data Bank to join the PDB archive

The EM Data Bank (EMDB), the primary archive for experimentally-determined maps obtained using three-dimensional electron microscopy methods, will join the PDB archive on 7 March 2012.
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Improved 3D Viewing for EM Maps and Models

We are pleased to announce improved 3D web-based viewing of maps and associated coordinate models from our atlas pages. The molecular visualization program OpenAstexViewer has been adapted by the our team to display EM maps and their associated coordinate models.
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2011 News

PDB40 Symposium

In October 2011, the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) will host a scientific symposium celebrating the 40th anniversary of the inception of the PDB, and the many scientific contributions it archives. The program will showcase the scientific impact made by structural biology during the past 40 years with a distinguished panel of scientists who have been instrumental in the development of the PDB and structural biology.
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Cryo-EM Modeling Challenge Update: Biopolymers Special Issue Call For Papers

A special issue of Biopolymers will cover the results of the first Cryo-EM Modeling Challenge held in 2010 with accompanying workshop at PSB 2011. The challenge was very successful with 136 models submitted by 10 different research groups using 13 different software packages.
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EMDB reaches 1000 entries!

February 2011: Congratulations are in order to the cryoEM community for reaching a significant milestone: more than 1000 maps representing a wide variety of biological assemblies are now archived in the EM DataBank.
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Announcement - Change in EMDB Hold Policy for Maps

Effective January 2011, the option to hold EM map volumes for two years before release to the public will no longer be available.
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New Publications

Up-to-date information about our project including history, current status, and future plans can be found in two publications now available online and in press.
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2010 News

Improved Uniformity of the EMDB Map Archive

September 2010: We are pleased to announce that a more uniform set of maps is now available through our search services and ftp mirror sites.
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EM Project Leader Position at PDBe

July 2010: The Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe; pdbe.org) has a vacancy for the Project Leader Electron Microscopy position.
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Announcement: 2010 Cryo-EM Modeling Challenge and PSB 2011 Workshop

2010 Cryo-EM Modeling Challenge and PSB 2011 workshop organized by Steven Ludtke, Wah Chiu, Helen Berman and Gerard Kleywegt.
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Remediated Maps Available in Beta

June 2010: The EmDataBank.org team is nearing completion of a major project to improve uniformity, viewability and useability of the 730+ map volumes in the EMDB that are currently available for download. Please read on to learn more about this project, and how to access the remediated maps.
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EMDB Weekly Release Cycle

You may have noticed that this site is updated on a weekly basis. EMDB's weekly release cycle is also now synchronized with wwPDB's release cycle.
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Modelling of CryoEM Maps Workshop

You have a brand new cryoEM density map of a biological assembly and want to generate a realistic coordinate model that fits the density. How should you proceed? This was the primary topic of discussion at the Modelling of CryoEM maps workshop held at the University of Houston on January 14-18, 2010.
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2009 News

Advanced Topics EM Structure Determination Workshop

The Workshop on Advanced Topics in EM Structure Determination: Challenging Molecules held Nov 8-13, 2009 at the National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy (NRAMM) at the Scripps Research Institute, was an intellectually stimulating meeting with over 100 attendees and an outstanding set of instructors. The meeting featured extensive discussion of challenges faced using cryoEM to solve macromolecules that are either small or conformationally variable in structure...
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Ribosomes in the EMDB

7 October 2009: This morning, the recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry were announced. V. Ramakrishnan, T. A. Steitz, and A. E. Yonath will share the award for their studies on the structure and function of the ribosome.
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September 2009 EM Meetings

Christoph Best (PDBe) gave a presentation on how to deposit and retrieve data sets in the EMDB at the 10-day EMBO Course in Cryo-Electron Microscopy at Birkbeck College, London organized by Elena Orlova and Helen Saibil.
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2009 3DEM GRC

The 2009 3DEM Gordon Research Conference in New London, NH was an exciting meeting with a full roster of excellent presentations and ample time for informal discussions. Team members Christoph Best (PDBe) and Cathy Lawson (RCSB-PDB) presented a poster describing recent progress towards creating a unified data resource for cryoEM.
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New EMDB Services

March 2009: We are pleased to announce improvements to EM Databank deposition and retrieval services hosted by PDBe (Europe) and RCSB PDB (USA).
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Symmetry Representation in the PDB

An open access article published in the August 2008 issue of Acta Crystallographica Section D describes the new scheme used by the PDB to archive regular non-crystallographic symmetry information for large biological assemblies.
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2008 News

Deposit Maps at EBI or RCSB

Feb 2008: Electron microscopy map data can now be deposited to the EMDB using the improved web-based tool EmDep2.
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2D Crystal Workshop

Jan 2008: An informal one day workshop organized by Wah Chiu and Cathy Lawson was held on Jan 15, 2008 at the UCSF Mission Bay Campus.
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2007 News

Unified Data Resource for CryoEM

Aug 2007: An NIH/NIGMS-funded collaboration to create a unified data resource for large complexes determined by cryo-electron microscopy has been established between the Macromolecular Structure Database Group at the European Bioinformatics Institute, the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics at Rutgers, and the National Center for Macromolecular Imaging at Baylor College of Medicine.
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Older News

EM Community Outreach History

In order to develop a community data resource, it is necessary to solicit input from representative members of the scientific community. Below is a summary of past workshops devoted to exchange of cryoEM data that have been organized by members of our project group and other leaders in cryoEM.
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