The goal of the Center is to support biomedical researchers in their knowledge-intensive work, by providing online tools and a Web portal enabling them to access, review, and integrate disparate ontological resources in all aspects of biomedical investigation and clinical practice. A major focus of our work involves the use of biomedical ontologies to aid in the management and analysis of data derived from complex experiments.

The Center is organized into seven core components:

• Core 1: Computer science research
• Core 2: Bioinformatics research
• Core 3: Driving biological projects and external research collaborations
• Core 4: Infrastructure
• Core 5: Education
• Core 6: Dissemination
• Core 7: Administration 

The Center is truly a National center, assembling the expertise of leading investigators from across the country.

Organization of the Center

The Core 1 computer-science research and Core 2 bioinformatics research involves the participation of Stanford University, Mayo Clinic, University of Victoria, and University of Buffalo. Past and Present Driving Biological Projects involve investigation of model-organism databases, analysis of clinical-trial data stored in TrialBank, cancer nanotechnology, and others.

The computer-science research in Core 1 delivers tools for accessing and unifying ontologies, and Core 2 concentrates on creating tools for using these ontologies to annotate large biomedical data sets, enabling data-set analysis and integration. These tools enable the driving biological projects in Core 3. There is a direct flow of tools and technologies from Core 1 to Core 2 to Core 3, while the projects in Core 3 motivate our Center’s research activities at all levels.

The Center achieves its objectives by advancing standards of good practice, by creating tools and theories that support a wide range of driving biological projects and collaborative research activities, and by training computational biologists, specialists in informatics, and computer scientists in the use of ontologies and of the Center’s technologies in support of their research.

The Center is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is part of the network of National Centers for Biomedical Computing.