Rutgers Professor Helen Berman to Receive Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences

Under Berman's direction, the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) Protein Data Bank (PDB), has been based at Rutgers University since 1998. When the RCSB won funding for PDB and moved it to Rutgers, the data bank had 9,000 archived structures. The PDB will release a milestone 100,000 structures in May 2014.
By: Rutgers University
 
Rutgers Professor Helen M. Berman will receive the Benjamin Franklin Award.
Rutgers Professor Helen M. Berman will receive the Benjamin Franklin Award.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - March 26, 2014 - PRLog -- Helen M. Berman, Rutgers University Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) and the Center for Integrative Proteomics Research, has been selected to receive the Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences from Bioinformatics.org, also known as The Bioinformatics Organization, Inc.

Berman is Director of the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) Protein Data Bank (PDB), which has been based at Rutgers since 1998. She will receive the award and deliver a laureate presentation at the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo on Wednesday, April 30, in Boston. The honor is a humanitarian/bioethics award presented annually by Bioinformatics.org to an individual who has, in his or her practice, promoted free and open access to the materials and methods used in the life sciences. Berman is the 13th recipient of the award.

“Helen’s leadership of the Protein Data Bank has been invaluable to so many scientists,” said Professor Roger A. Jones, Rutgers CCB Chairman. “I can think of few if any people who are more deserving of an award for open access in the life sciences. Helen truly embodies the spirit of this special honor.”

Berman, a Princeton resident, was raised in Brooklyn and studied Chemistry at Barnard College before earning a Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh. Berman worked at Fox Chase Cancer Center for 20 years, researching nucleic acid crystallography and drug nucleic acid interactions. She moved to Rutgers in 1989, expanded her program to include the study of the structures of collagen and protein-nucleic acid complexes, and at the same time developed structural databases and ontologies.

In the 1970s Berman began working with colleagues to establish the PDB archive at Brookhaven National Laboratory as a place to store and share data about the 3D structures of proteins and nucleic acids. In 1998, when the RCSB won funding for PDB and moved it to Rutgers, the data bank had 9,000 archived structures. The PDB will release a milestone 100,000 structures in May 2014.

The PDB archive is the single worldwide repository of information about the 3D structures of large biological molecules, including proteins and nucleic acids, providing an essential resource of information about biomolecular structures. These molecules of life are found in all organisms, from bacteria and plants to animals and humans.

Bioinformatics.org serves the scientific and educational needs of bioinformatic practitioners and the general public. The organization maintains computational resources to facilitate worldwide communications and collaborations, and promotes open access to the materials and methods required for, and derived from, research, development and education.

About Rutgers University Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology

The Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department (CCB) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a national leader in undergraduate and graduate education and scientific research. The National Science Foundation (NSF) ranks Rutgers first nationally in funding for chemistry research and development at $38.8 million. Chemistry faculty members have obtained more than 250 patents and $170 million in venture capital over the past 12 years. Rutgers will soon break ground on a new building for CCB, designed to be a signature science facility for the Busch Campus. For more information, please visit http://chem.rutgers.edu/.

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Source:Rutgers University
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