The Biological Macromolecule Crystallization Database (BMCD) contains molecule, crystal and crystallization data for macromolecules for which diffraction quality crystals have been obtained. These include proteins and nucleic acids, various complexes, and viruses. The BMCD has been available as NIST Standard Reference Database 21 since 1989, one of the earliest Standard Reference Databases at NIST.

The current release includes 129,845 crystal entries. Newer data have been extracted from PDB REMARK 280 records, converted into scientific format (from aggregate text string to individual, numeric data) with error checking and standardization of chemical names. New search features include automatic synonym searches for chemicals, numeric range search for pH, and combined searches over multiple fields.

The authors of the BMCD are Gary Gilliland, Michael Tung, Jane Ladner, Travis Gallagher, and The Structural Biology Group, Biochemical Science Division of CSTL at NIST. Dr. Gilliland is the original author of BMCD. Currently he is working as Director, Structural Biology for Centocor R&D, Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

The BMCD website and sync script was refactored in 2017 by Austin Long, Patrick Cao, and Tyler Han. The website was originally designed by Nathalie Mitchell and the sync script was originally written by Maya Zuhl.

Please use the following reference when citing the use of the Biological Macromolecule Crystallization Database:

2009 Tung, M and Gallagher, DT.
The Biomolecular Crystallization Database version 4: expanded content and new features. Acta Crystallographica D65, 18-23.

(Please include the original references for particular crystallization procedures.)