STANDARDS FOR COLLABORATIVE COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH - Collaborative Computational Technologies for Biomedical Research - page 203

TABLE 13.1 Examples of Standards in Biomedical Sciences
Standard Name Website

The Open Biological and Biomedical
Ontologies (OBO)

http://www.obofoundry.org/

The Ontology for Biomedical
Investigators (OBI)

http://obi - ontology.org/page/Main_Page

The Functional Genomics Data Society
(MGED)

http://www.mged.org/index.html

Minimum Information About a
Microarray Experiment (MIAME)

http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/
MIAME/miame.html

The Minimum Information About a
Bioactive Entity (MIABE)

http://www.psidev.info/
index.php?q= node/394

Minimum Information for Biological
and Biomedical Investigators (MIBBI)

http://www.mibbi.org/index.php/
MIBBI_portal

Minimum Information for Publication of
real time QT-PCR data (MIQE)

http://www.gene - quantifi cation.de/
miqe - press.html

in the workplace. Standards appear and soon proliferate with each new tech-
nology in the biosciences. Such standards are usually initiated by an organiza-
tion, generally a nonprofi t, that brings together key researchers to discuss the
needs and approaches for harmonization [e.g., International Life Science
Institute (ILSI), http://www.ilsi.org/Pages/AboutUs.aspx].
Many of the newer standards appear to be used as guidelines for publica-
tion of the various data types as well as to facilitate data exchange. In fact,
many journals list an array of standards which articles must comply with, for
example, deposition of Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment
(MIAME) compliant data (Table 13.1) in certain databases. Organizations
are increasingly recognizing that adhering to standards is key to reinforcing
quality.
In this topic several chapters mention the term standards . For example, in
Chapter 1 open standards are discussed briefl y [7]. In Chapter 5 there is dis-
cussion of a lack of focus on creating standards or even setting requirements
for collaborative technologies [8]. In Chapter 4 standards are discussed in the
context of pharmaceutical companies for experiments, data storage, analysis,
and recordkeeping (required for regulatory agencies) while these may not be
so apparent in academia (especially in terms of the latter regulatory require-
ments) [9]. In Chapter 17 caBIG is described as providing a set of standards
to enable sharing [10] while in Chapter 14 it is stated that users are helping
defi ne open standards for data collection and reading by software outside of
that provided by the original equipment manufacturer as a lack of openness
may become a competitive disadvantage for such companies [11]. In Chapter
28 we mention that the lack of formal standards to annotate publically avail-
able screening data limits their integration with other data sources [12]. Other
common standards not described in these chapters are listed in Table 13.1.