Introduction
The value of any kind of data is greatly enhanced when it exists in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data. One approach to integration is through the annotation of multiple bodies of data using common controlled vocabularies. Ideally, such controlled vocabularies take the form of 'ontologies', which means that they are constructed in such a way as to support logical reasoning over the data annotated in their terms.
The success of this general approach in helping to tame the explosive proliferation of data in the biomedical domain has led to the development of principles of good practice in ontology development, which are now being put into practice within the framework of the Open Biomedical Ontologies consortium through its OBO Foundry initiative. Existing OBO ontologies, including the Gene Ontology, are undergoing coordinated reform and new ontologies are being created in a coordinated effort to create a family of ontologies designed to be interoperable and logically well formed and to incorporate accurate representations of biological reality.
The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (formerly The Open Biomedical Ontologies as well as The Open Biological Ontologies) is an effort to create controlled vocabularies for shared use across different biological and medical domains. As of 2006, OBO ontologies form part of the resources of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology, where they form a central component of the NCBO's BioPortal.
The OBO Foundry is a collaborative experiment, involving a group of OBO ontology developers who have agreed in advance to the adoption of a growing set of principles specifying best practices in ontology development. The goal is to develop a set of interoperable humanly validated reference ontologies for all major domains of biomedical research. The project is summarized in this article published in Nature Biotechnology.
Read more about this topic: OBO Foundry
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