biology

Protein Information Resource

Protein Information Resource is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Protein Information Resource rather than just read about it. In short: The Protein Information Resource (PIR), located at Georgetown University Medical Center, is an integrated public bioinformatics resource to support genomic and proteomic research, and scientific studies. It contains protein sequences databases History PIR was established in 1984 by the National Biomedical Research Foundation as a resource to assist researchers and customers in the identification and interpretation o…

Key takeaways

Protein Information Resource belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Protein Information Resource to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Protein Information Resource from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Protein Information Resource (PIR), located at Georgetown University Medical Center, is an integrated public bioinformatics resource to support genomic and proteomic research, and scientific studies. It contains protein sequences databases

History PIR was established in 1984 by the National Biomedical Research Foundation as a resource to assist researchers and customers in the identification and interpretation of protein sequence information. Prior to that, the foundation compiled the first comprehensive collection of macromolecular sequences in the Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure, published from 1964 to 1974 under the editorship of Margaret Dayhoff. Dayhoff and her research group pioneered in the development of computer methods for the comparison of protein sequences, for the detection of distantly related sequences and duplications within sequences, and for the inference of evolutionary histories from alignments of protein sequences. Winona Barker and Robert Ledley assumed leadership of the project after the death of Dayhoff in 1983. In 1999, Cathy H. Wu joined the National Biomedical Research Foundation, and later on Georgetown University Medical Center, to head the bioinformatics efforts of PIR, and has served first as Principal Investigator and, since 2001, as Director. For four decades, PIR has provided many protein databases and analysis tools freely accessible to the scientific community, including the Protein Sequence Database, the first international database (see PIR-International), which grew out of Atlas of Protein Sequences and Structure. In 2002, PIR – along with its international partners, the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics – were awarded a grant from NIH to create UniProt, a single worldwide database of protein sequence and function, by unifying the Protein Information Resource-Protein Sequence Database, Swiss-Prot, and TrEMBL databases. As of 2010, PIR offers a wide variety of resources mainly oriented to assist the propagation and standardization of protein annotation: PIRSF, iProClass, and iProLINK. The Protein Ontology is another popular database released by the Protein Information Resource.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Protein Information Resource

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Protein Information Resource claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Protein Information Resource before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Protein Information Resource ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Protein Information Resource

In research: Protein Information Resource appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Protein Information Resource in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Protein Information Resource is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Protein databases, Proteomics organizations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Protein Information Resource outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Protein Information Resource” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Protein Information Resource in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Protein Information Resource means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Protein Information Resource out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Protein Information Resource in simple terms?

Why does Protein Information Resource matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Protein Information Resource?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Protein Information Resource.