Collaborators
The goal of NatPro is to apply technologies developed by the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) to investigate the functions of natural product biosynthesis proteins of high biological/biomedical relevance. This is best achieved through collaborations with natural product biochemists that are interested in target identification and performing functional follow-up studies in their own laboratories. At present, our collaborators consist of Professors Michael Thomas and Jon Thorson of the University of Wisconsin and Professor Ben Shen of Scripps-Florida. More collaborators may be added later. To become a collaborator with NatPro, an investigator must first nominate a protein or proteins in an email addressed to phillips@biochem.wisc.edu, with NPB Nomination in the subject line. This nomination must include the name of the gene of interest, the exact DNA sequence of the gene to be analyzed, a brief rationale for why this protein is of particular biological/biomedical interest to the natural products community, and a description of how structural data would motivate/enable follow-up studies. Nominations will be reviewed by NatPro staff for feasibility and for any conflicts-of-interest (internally or between existing collaborators). Acceptance of a nomination marks the beginning of a collaboration. It is expected that collaborations will result in publications with joint authorship between NatPro and investigators.
The NatPro PSI:Biology Center will:
- Ensure that results and data are collected, maintained, and transferred to appropriate databases, including the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and the Target Database (TargetTrack) in a timely fashion.
- Ensure that structure coordinates and structure factors are promptly deposited to the PDB; PSI policy is that coordinates should be deposited within four weeks of completing refinement and must be released immediately upon deposition, unless held temporarily for CASP (Critical Assessment of techniques for protein Structure Prediction) - such as tests of software and methods development.
- Ensure that all appropriate results are provided to the PSI-Structural Genomics Knowledge Base.
- Ensure that materials generated by the partnership are shared with qualified scientists through mechanisms including, but not limited to the required deposition of vectors and clones in the PSI-Materials Repository.
- Ensure the timely dissemination of information to the scientific public.
- Ensure that the partnership complies with the intellectual property policies of the partnership institutions, the NIH, and the PSI:Biology Network.