In the year following itsofficial launch by Vice President Gore in June 1997, PubMed use increased from one million to 16 million searches per month. The success of PubMed has led to the increasing involvement of NCBI in projects related to electronic access to the scientific literature. NCBI research in protein analysis spawned three major resources this year. The Entrez Structures database was enhanced with structure-based protein neighbors, often discovered to be homologs with similar biological functions. Visualization of aligned structures is supported by the Cn3D structure viewer.
COGs organizes clusters of protein sequences from completely sequenced genomes of different species.
Currently there are eight genomes in the scheme, spanning the major kingdoms of life. Analysis of COGs shows the molecular similarities and differences between species, which not only can provide clues about evolution, but also may help to identify protein families, predict new protein functions, and point to potential drug targets in pathogenic species. Collaborations with other NIH Institutes for disease-based services were also established. As the Human Genome Project nears completion, the research focus is turning from analysis of specific genes or regions to a whole genome approach. NCBI has developed a suite of genomics resources to support comprehensive analysis of the human genome.