Collaborative computational project for electron cryo-microscopy

The Collaborative Computational Project for Electron cryo-Microscopy (CCP-EM) has recently been established. The aims of the project are threefold: to build a coherent cryoEM community which will provide support for individual scientists and will act as a focal point for liaising with other communities, to support practising scientists in their use of cryoEM software and finally to support software developers in producing and disseminating robust and user-friendly programs. The project is closely modelled on CCP4 for macromolecular crystallo­graphy, and areas of common interest such as model fitting, underlying software libraries and tools for building program packages are being exploited. Nevertheless, cryoEM includes a number of techniques covering a large range of resolutions and a distinct project is required. In this article, progress so far is reported and future plans are discussed