Standards for systems biology.
High-throughput technologies are generating large amounts of complex data that have to be stored in databases, communicated to various data analysis tools and interpreted by scientists. Data representation and communication standards are needed to implement these steps efficiently. Here we give a classification of various standards related to systems biology and discuss various aspects of standardization in life sciences in general. Why are some standards more successful than others, what are the prerequisites for a standard to succeed and what are the possible pitfalls?
Brazma
Alvis
A
European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SD, UK. brazma@ebi.ac.uk
Krestyaninova
Maria
M
Sarkans
Ugis
U
D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D006113:United Kingdom