Modeling biomedical experimental processes with OBI.
BACKGROUND
Experimental descriptions are typically stored as free text without using standardized terminology, creating challenges in comparison, reproduction and analysis. These difficulties impose limitations on data exchange and information retrieval.


RESULTS
The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI), developed as a global, cross-community effort, provides a resource that represents biomedical investigations in an explicit and integrative framework. Here we detail three real-world applications of OBI, provide detailed modeling information and explain how to use OBI.


CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrate how OBI can be applied to different biomedical investigations to both facilitate interpretation of the experimental process and increase the computational processing and integration within the Semantic Web. The logical definitions of the entities involved allow computers to unambiguously understand and integrate different biological experimental processes and their relevant components.


BACKGROUND
OBI is available at http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi/2009-11-02/obi.owl.
Brinkman
Ryan R
RR
British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, Canada. rbrinkman@bccrc.ca.
Courtot
Mélanie
M
Derom
Dirk
D
Fostel
Jennifer M
JM
He
Yongqun
Y
Lord
Phillip
P
Malone
James
J
Parkinson
Helen
H
Peters
Bjoern
B
Rocca-Serra
Philippe
P
Ruttenberg
Alan
A
Sansone
Susanna-Assunta
SA
Soldatova
Larisa N
LN
Stoeckert
Christian J
CJ
Turner
Jessica A
JA
Zheng
Jie
J