Bernhard is absolutely right. The urge is definitely noble, but also quixotic, and reality has a way of bashing the quixotic. We once stumbled on a purported protein-ligand structure, for which the evidence for ligand binding was simply nonexistent. I spent many, many hours over the course of several years going back and forth with the authors, and then the editors (the journal, which will remain nameless, is part of the high-profile stable of journals beginning with the word N****e). At first, everyone paid lip service to idea of fixing the problem, but eventually it became evident that no one was incentivized (as they say) to actually do so. In the end, nothing changed (except perhaps my disposition, which used to be all sweetness and light. Really).
Pat
> On 21 Jan 2016, at 11:15 AM, Bernhard Rupp (Hofkristallrat a.D.) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Ø The overall improvement of the public resource that is the PDB
> takes precedence over anything else…. I might be moved to write this
> up in a letter to the editor of the journal
>
> This is an exceptionally noble thought that gets routinely clobbered by reality. Recent example:
>
> http://www.jimmunol.org/content/196/2/530.2.short
>
> Follow the comments, replies, and final editorial perception of this disaster as a ‘lively debate’
>
> No retraction, no PDB update, no consequences for peptide models whose
> geometry precludes their existence, and which are not supported by density.
>
> Paul Feyerabend was right, after all. Anything goes.
>
> Cheers, BR
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick J. Loll, Ph. D.
Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Director, Biochemistry Graduate Program
Drexel University College of Medicine
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