IceBear: Research Data Management
for Structural Biology

Project roadmap

IceBear aims to cover the protein crystallization pipeline from initial trials through to structure deposition.

Currently, the pipeline is covered as far as shipping crystals to the synchrotron (for Diamond Light Source only). Linking crystals to deposited structures is also supported.

Crystal shipping

We are testing automated shipping to Diamond Light Source, and working with ESRF and MAX-IV to develop support for shipment to them. We aim to extend support to all ISPyB synchrotrons and beyond, and to support plate shipments for in-situ data collection.

We continue to work with the ISPyB consortium to develop and test a unified API for shipment submission.

We are also working with manufacturers to enable task list transfer from IceBear to home X-ray source plate scanners.

Future plans

IceBear will support the retrieval of datasets from synchrotrons.

IceBear will facilitate deposition of structures to the PDB.

We plan to offer IceBear as a hosted service, running at CSC's supercomputing facility, which will also enable further features to be developed.