Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI)

MISSION STATEMENT

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) project is developing an integrated ontology for the description of biological and clinical investigations. This includes a set of 'universal' terms, that are applicable across various biological and technological domains, and domain-specific terms relevant only to a given domain. This ontology will support the consistent annotation of biomedical investigations, regardless of the particular field of study. The ontology will model the design of an investigation, the protocols and instrumentation used, the material used, the data generated and the type analysis performed on it. This project was formerly called the Functional Genomics Investigation Ontology (FuGO) project.

The latest complete version of ontology (.owl) file will always be available from http://purl.obofoundry.org/obo/obi.owl.

Develop an Ontology for Biomedical Investigations in collaboration with groups representing different biological and technological domains involved in Biomedical Investigations
Make OBI compatible with other bio-ontologies
Develop OBI using an open source approach
Create a valuable resource for the biomedical communities to provide a source of terms for consistent annotation of investigations

OBI News

16 November 2007: OBO Foundry Paper Published in Nature Biotechnology
"The OBO Foundry: coordinated evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integration" by Smith et al. and co-authored by the OBI Consortium is now available as an open access paper from Nature Biotechnology.

Project Organization
The OBI Consortium contains:

Coordination Committee, consisting of:
- Community Representatives, those representing the communities participating in the development of OBI, and
- Core Developers, those who are considered key to the evolution of the ontology.
Developers Working Group
The Developers Working Group consists of all developers within the communities collaborating in the development of OBI. To participate in the development of OBI, subscribe to the OBI Developers mailing list and join in the conference calls.

The development of OBI is advised and supported by:

The OBI Advisors Group
The Advisors Group consists of individuals invited by the Coordination Committee to provide expert advice in areas such as ontology best practices and technical implementation issues.
Supporting Groups and Organizations
Various Supporting Groups and Organizations have encouraged their members to offer their time towards the development of OBI, often without recourse to supplementary funding.

If you represent a Community that would like to collaborate in the development of OBI, contact the Coordination Committee.

Additionally, to keep up with the pace of development in OBI, an OBI Wiki has been set up to promote the quick release of new information to the public.

The full documentation on the scope and organization of the OBI project is available for download.

Conference Calls
Weekly Developer Working Group conference calls are held on Wednesdays from 11-12AM EST, 4-5PM GMT, with the exception of the second Wednesday of each month. For more information on these calls, check the OBI Wiki.

Notes From Previous Conference Calls
View Notes