The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) is a not-for-profit organization that aims to determine the three dimensional structures of proteins of medical relevance, and place them in the public domain without restriction. The SGC operates out of the Universities of Oxford and  Toronto and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. During the first phase of the project, more than 450 protein structures were deposited in the PDB. In its second funding phase (July 1 2007 - June 30 2011) SGC aims to determine more than 650 novel structures, including 9 structures of human integral membrane proteins. SGC works on a Target List of ~2,400 proteins with relevance to human health comprising proteins associated with diabetes, cancer, genetic and epigenetic disease as well as with infectious diseases such as malaria.

SGC Stockholm

The Stockholm laboratory was established in 2005 after funding had been provided by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (KAW), the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) and Karolinska Institutet. The laboratory is hosted by the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet. Currently 25 researchers are employed by the project.

Structural Genomics and Impact for Society

SGC deposited its 400th structure into the Protein Data Bank in March 2007, and is currently operating at a pace of 200 structures per year. The vast amount of structural information generated by the SGC is expected to have a tremendous impact on human health by furthering our understanding of relevant proteins - leading to new hypotheses and new directions for biomedicinal research - and by supplying new targets for therapeutic intervention. It will also provide the structural framework for the rational design of new or improved drugs that can inhibit or enhance protein function. The significant contributions of structural biology to drug discovery are well documented (e.g. http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/structlife/chapter4.html).