FAQ

Does CAMEO build models for users?

No. CAMEO is not a meta-server and will not answer user requests. Its sole purpose is to continuously evaluate the accuracy of prediction servers based on known experimental structures released by the PDB.

What is the schedule of submission and evaluation in CAMEO?

CAMEO is hinged on the PDB release cycle. The phase I pre-release data, which currently is scheduled to be published for Saturday morning (3:00 UTC), is then processed to select interesting modeling targets which are sent to the CAMEO 3D participants. After the phase II release of experimental structures the following Wednesday (0:00 UTC) predictions are no longer accepted by CAMEO.

How does the submission work?

Upon submission, you will receive an HTTP POST or GET request with the target information including target sequence(s), ligand composition, project title and email address. CAMEO is flexible and allows you to specify which parameters to bind the data to. The registration form lets you tell us precisely how to submit the targets.

For certain categories like 3D Structures and Complexes, validation systems are also available to test your server beforehand.

How do I register my modeling server with CAMEO?

Since 2025, you can create a user account with CAMEO, and submit registration information directly from your account page. Please login and navigate to your account by clicking the icon on the top right of the website. Click on the "Create a new server" button and enter the requested information. Once you are done, click on the "Create new server" button. We will install the configuration of your new server as soon as possible or contact you if we need additional information.

Please contact us directly by email (help-cameo3d@unibas.ch) if you have any issues with the registration process.

How can I change submission information?

Please login and navigate to your account by clicking the icon on the top right of the website. You will see a list of all the servers registered in your name. Click on the lock icon to start editing the registration. Once you are done, click on the "Request update of server details" button. We will install the new configuration of your server as soon as possible or contact you if we need additional information.

Please contact us directly by email (help-cameo3d@unibas.ch) if you have any issues with the registration process.

How do I return my predictions?

You must return your predictions by email to the email address that was provided during the submission. The models should be included as attachment to the email.

Can I submit several models for a target protein in CAMEO?

Yes, you can include several models in an email as attachments. CAMEO will evaluate up to 5 models, in attachment order. However only the first model will be considered in summary tables. If you server can be tuned with different parameters (e.g. for highest coverage or for highest accuracy), you will need to register two servers with different parameters. Please use the following on-line registration form [REGISTER], or contact us directly by email (help-cameo3d@unibas.ch) if you have any questions.

The models I sent were wrong, can I submit new ones?

Yes, you can send us a new email. CAMEO will only look at predictions in the last email received (within the time window) per server for each target sequence.

Is all CAMEO data public?

Authors of a prediction server can decide if their evaluation data is public or only accessible privately. Services initially registered as "development" (e.g. during the development phase) can later be changed to "public" (e.g. for publication purposes).

How can I see other development servers?

Only developers can see the results of development servers of other developers. If we forgot to add your account to the developers group, please contact us directly by email (help-cameo3d@unibas.ch). Only users with active and functional servers can be added to the developers group. If you are not a developer yourself, you cannot access results or data from development servers.

Can I suggest a new score / evaluation method?

Yes, of course. CAMEO is a community service, and we don’t expect that our initial set of scores will be perfect. In fact, we know it is not. If you would like to see a different evaluation score applied, please let us know!

Which servers will be evaluated?

CAMEO will only evaluate servers with the consent of the author. We invite all server developers to register their services to CAMEO. Please use the on-line registration form, or contact us directly by email if your service does not fit within these categories.

See our complete list of registered servers.

Which prediction methods are covered by CAMEO?

In the current release, CAMEO addresses the evaluation of services for 3D structures and macromolecular complexes prediction. CAMEO also featured a category for single chain 3D protein structure prediction, structure Quality Estimation (QE), Ligand Binding site residue prediction (LB) and one for residue-residue Contact Prediction (CP) which have been deprecated.

How does CAMEO relate to CASP?

In CASP, expert groups aim to predict structures of 50-100 target proteins for which the coordinates will not be published during the prediction window (3 weeks). The results are assessed blindly by independent assessors. In CAMEO, automated prediction servers are continuously benchmarked using thousands of newly released structures from the PDB on a weekly basis. The assessment is fully automated.