The Protein Information Resource, or PIR, is an online, publicly available resource that contains databases of protein sequences and computer programs that support the study of proteins, their functions, evolutionary histories, and interactions with other biomolecules in living organisms. A non-profit research institution called the National Biomedical Research Foundation, or NBRF, established the PIR in 1984. Since proteins were first sequenced in the late 1950s, scientists have used protein sequence data to understand biological functions, interactions, and pathways. Protein sequences contribute to many kinds of research, including genomics, proteomics, and systems biology. From 1984 to 2004, the PIR housed one of the first, free online protein sequence databases and computer programs that allowed searching and comparison of those sequences. During that twenty-year period, scientists could use the PIR to identify an unknown protein and determine its evolutionary history and function, including its role in embryological development.

The Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure, hereafter the Atlas, was a computerized collection of protein sequences distributed in the form of a paperback book published from 1965 to 1979. Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, a researcher who used computers to study biochemistry, was the primary author. Most editions of the Atlas included chapters of original research and computer programs for analyzing protein-sequence data to determine protein structure and function and derive insights about evolution at the molecular level. Before the establishment of the Atlas, biochemists sometimes published specialized sequence collections for comparative research about a given protein. The Atlas was the first comprehensive collection of all published protein sequences derived from diverse organisms. The Atlas laid the foundation of what is, as of 2026, a leading international protein-sequence database, enabling numerous lines of research, such as predicting the function of unknown proteins, which in turn informs scientific technologies and advances such as gene editing.

Margaret Oakley Dayhoff was a researcher in the United States during the twentieth century who studied physical chemistry and the application of computers to biological problems such as the analysis of protein structure and function. Proteins are molecules that perform work in cells and are made up of subunits called amino acids arranged in a particular sequence. In the 1960s, researchers were cataloguing new protein sequences at an accelerating rate, and a database did not yet exist to contain them. In response, Dayhoff collected and made available all known protein sequences in her book Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure and later in the electronic database called the Protein Sequence Database. Her work on data collection provided the foundation for UniProt and GenBank, which, as of 2026, are international and free databases of all known protein and nucleic-acid sequences, respectively. Through the databases and computer programs she created, Dayhoff provided researchers the tools they needed to better understand the evolutionary relationships among all biological life.