Subject: Molecular Modeling Facilities

From: [email-masked] (Mark A. Sherman)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 95 13:41:20 -0700

Dear Netters:

On June 7, I posted a request asking how many universities/institutes
maintain molecular modeling core facilities and how much they charge users.
Here is a summary of the responses I received:

Of the nine responses I received from universities, six claimed they do
not charge users.
The seventh respondent stated they charge $600/yr, flat rate.
The eighth respondent stated they originally charged $15/hr, but later
charged a flat rate (to be requested by users in their grant proposals).
The ninth respondent stated that they charge $1.10 CPU-hr, $4.00/hr login
time, and $0.80 Mbyte/month storage fee.

Two drug companies responded. The first respondent stated that they do not
charge other departments unless use becomes excessive. The second respondent
stated that molecular modeling was distributed throughout many departments,
with each department assuming financial responsibility for their users.

One government sponsered institute responded (a Supercomputing Center). They
stated that there was no charge for non-proprietary work, but that all
proposals needed to first pass an internal review. No help is provided to 
users (you're on your own).

One respondent made the following statement, which pretty well sums it up:

"I can tell you from long experience that no matter how much people like
having a molecular modeling facility available, the price they are willing
to pay for it is effectively ZERO. By that I mean that there is little chance
of recovering a reasonable fraction of expenses without raising the price
high enough that people will start thinking about buying their own workstation
and hoping they can wing it..."

Thanks to all who responded.

Mark A. Sherman, Ph.D.
Director, Molecular Modeling Facility
Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope, Duarte, California 91010
[email-masked]