The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) at Berkeley Lab has highlighted many applications and success stories of licensing a Biosciences Area software, Phenix, which stands for Python-based Hierarchical ENvironment for Integrated Xtallography. This tool, initially developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the support of Laboratory-Directed Research and Development funds, aims to automate the analysis of structural biology data. 

Crystallography (X-ray, neutron, electron) and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) are critical techniques used to study biological systems and develop new therapeutics. But for many decades analyzing and optimizing macromolecular structures from experimental data was a manual, time-intensive, and fraught process. 

Paul D. Adams, then a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and now Associate Lab Director of the Biosciences Area, thought about automating the many procedures required for solving a structure. The first release of Phenix was in 2005 and has since been involved in many collaborative projects, notably with researchers like Nobel laureate David Baker. Today, the software has over 35,000 users, including scientists in academia, government, and industry and there are more than 70 commercial licensees around the world, including leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies. 

Read more about the impact of Phenix in the Berkeley Lab IPO website article.