Contributors

• Phil Bourne (SDSC/UCSD) Principle Investigator (MSDL and molecular gallery)
• Mike Gribskov (SDSC/UCSD) Co-principle Investigator (MSDL and molecular gallery)
• John Moreland (SDSC) Senior Programmer (MICE application, collaboration)
• Steve Wavra (Southwest High School) Evaluator (molecular scene development)
• Helge Weissig (SDSC/UCSD) Project Manager, RCSB (MSDL, molecular gallery, and specific Java console components)
• John Tate (SDSC/UCSD) Post Doctoral Fellow (MSDL, molecular gallery, MSG)

• The MICE application was written by John Moreland, who also designed the underlying ICE protocols and the IceServer which provides the collaboration capabilities of MICE.
• The server side scripts for the generation of molecular scenes were written by John Tate. This web site was constructed by John Tate, based on the design of the original MICE website. If you find any errors, inaccuracies or omissions, please mail me.
• The MICE logo was designed by Gail Bamber (SDSC/UCSD), SDSC graphic designer.

Publications

P.E. Bourne, M. Gribskov, G. Johnson, J. Moreland, and H. Weissig Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 1998 Ed. R Altman, K. Dunker, L.Hunter, and T. Klein pp.118-129. A Prototype Molecular Interactive Collaborative Environment (MICE). [compressed PostScript 0.12MB] [uncompressed PostScript 0.4MB] [PDF format 51KB]

J.G. Tate, J. Moreland, P.E. Bourne Journal of Applied Crystallography (1999) 32. pp.1027-1028. MSG (Molecular Scene Generator): a Web-based application for the visualization of macromolecular structures.

Funding

The MICE project is funded by NSF grant DBI 9723475. You can view the abstract for this project, as well as funding information, at the NSF website.

Related links

• MolScript is a program for preparing schematic diagrams of molecular structures. It is used by the MICE project for generating the VRML representations of PDB structures.
• Raster3D is a set of programs that perform general figure composition and rendering for molecular structures. The render program is used by MSG for creating photo-realistic images of structures.
• Rasmol is an application that is related to MolScript in that it can be used for visualization of macro-molecular structures. It goes further however, in that it can also be used for querying the underlying structure and for interactively developing a representation of a structure. A related program, Chime is available as a plugin for web browsers, allowing users to view molecular structures embedded in a webpage.
• The Computer Graphics Lab at the University of California, San Francisco, is also involved with developing collaborative systems for visualization and manipulation of three-dimensional molecular structures. In contrast to MICE, which is designed provide simple visualization capabilities in a collaborative setting, the MidasPlus package is the basis for work on a new tool that will enable full blown molecular modelling on a collaborative basis.
• VMD (Visual Molecular Dynamics) is a molecular visualization program from the Theoretical Biophysics group of the University of Illinois. As well as producing standard representations of molecular structures, the program can also act as an interactive front-end for external molecular dynamics simulation packages.
• Spock is another general purpose molecular visualization program, but it also includes Internet conferencing facilities that allow a view to be shared between multiple users on a network.
• O is a powerful structure manipulation package, capable of everything from map interpretation through to rudimentary real space refinement of protein structure. Morten Kjeldgaard maintains an alternative O site.
• XtalView is a collection of macromolecular crystallography programs. XFit, the map fitting and structure manipulation package is also capable of producing high quality schematic representations of structures, using render to generate photorealistic images. With a graphical user interface and form-based controls, XtalView is somewhat easier to learn than O, if less powerful for some complex operations.
• Turbo Frodo, named for the predecessor of O is a general purpose molecular modelling program that can display and manipulate electron density maps, build macromolecular structure models, and generate high quality schematic structure representations.
• The Olson Group at The Scripps Research Institute produces a range of visualization and analytical software for protein structure investigation.
• WebMol is a Java structure viewer. It can be run as either a standalone applications, or as an applet, embedded in a webpage.

MICE team Last modified: Wed Nov 15 16:13:42 PST 2000