Commemorating 75 Years of Discovery and Innovation at the NSF

05/04 

On May 10, 2025, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) commemorates its 75th anniversary.

The NSF has been a major supporter of RCSB PDB, and enables RCSB.org data and services to provide infrastructure for new ideas in research.

Science communication intern Xinyi Christine Zhang (Harvard) has created posters to celebrate the science made possible by the NSF and RCSB PDB.

Visit PDB-101 to download high resolution versions of these images and to learn more about how these developments are changing our world.

NSF Opportunities and Grand Challenges

Biotechnology
GFP, a tiny fluorescent protein from jellyfish, has revolutionized cell biology.

Emerging Industries in the Bioeconomy
Cascade and CRISPR help bacteria remember how to fight viral infection. This technology is transforming our understanding of gene regulation.

GFP and CRISPR are both highlighted on the NSF History Wall.

Building a Better Future
Researchers are looking to Nature to find ways to dispose of discarded plastic, bringing biology to industry along the way.

Artificial Intelligence
50 years of open access to the PDB has accelerated scientific advances in protein structure architecture and AI/ML prediction tools.

PDB Supports the Goals of the NSF

There are several connections between the PDB and the U.S. National Science Foundation 2022–2026 Strategic Plan:

Empower

• RCSB PDB is committed to training, supporting, and empowering a community of researchers and future scientists

Discover

• RCSB.org tools drive research across all NSF directorates, illuminating biology from Agriculture to Zoology
• PDB structures aid understanding societal challenges, such as the physics of aging
• CryoEM resolution revolution and predicted protein structures are advancing the frontiers of research
• RCSB PDB accelerates data-intensive research through advanced cyberinfrastructure
• Structural biology provides foundational knowledge into the rules that make life work

Impact

• RCSB PDB safeguards structural biology data generated with NSF funding of more than half a billion dollars worth of NSF data over the lifetime of the PDB
• PDB structures have contributed data to >1 million published research papers

RCSB PDB Core Operations are funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (DBI-2321666), the US Department of Energy (DE-SC0019749), and the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant R01GM157729.

Visit NSF.gov to learn how NSF's decades-long support for the open-access database has facilitated pioneering scientific advancements and medical treatments.