The shape of a protein determines how it will function. Given this information, scientists try to determine what will happen as they interact with other proteins, with diseases,or with drugs. The MSD will be a central repository for all known structures. There are currently 8,000 structures in the database, but there are 100's of 1,000's of such proteins to understand. The database not only houses the information, but has sophisticated query features.
Scientists are able to question which other structures are similar to the type they are studying.
Finding similar structures,allows them to take advantage of another researcher's work, and possibly even create a cure faster. This stands for Common Object Request Broker Architecture, a software standard for interfacing between computers. Tools like this allow researchers to access complicated databases, no matter what type of computer they are using. As more and more scientific work is done using high performance computers and the Internet, the ability to work without having to learn a new programming language each time is essential. Because the wiring is standardized, the plug allows any number of objects to work.