Thomas

This is a great start. I would add one more bullet point;

5. Explore harmonization with other biological and biomedical domains for standards for data and metadata.

It seems to me that we do not want to develop standards for all the various types of assays that might be done as tox studies; microarray, tissue culture, model animal in vivo, histology, etc. Instead we want those "technique domains" to develop their own data and annotation standards that best fits their data and experimental characteristics. What we really need are methods of controlling how the toxicological information (data and meta-data) is append to the domain-specific formats. This seems to me to be two issues; (1) prodding (coercing, begging) the domain-specific communities to develop a standard for their domains that is compatible with annotation using toxicological concepts and (2) developing a controlled vocabulary and/or ontology suitable for that annotation.

Jim Sluka
Biocomplexity Institute
Indiana University

-----Original Message-----
From: ontology-bounces at opentox.org [mailto:ontology-bounces at opentox.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Exner
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 11:00 AM
To: ontology at opentox.org
Subject: [OpenTox Ontology] OpenTox Working Group Data Standards and Metadata

Dear all:

As part of the activities of the OpenTox Association, working groups on different aspects of OpenTox have been launched. As leader of the working group on data standards and metadata, I would like to invite everyone to participate in our activities. The goals of the group are described below and will also be presented and discussed on the OpenTox Euro meeting in Dublin (Sep. 30 - Oct. 2). If you are interested or have any question, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards.
Thomas

WG3 Defining Standards for Data and Metadata in OpenTox

Large amounts of toxicity data is generated worldwide on a daily basis and stored in different open and inhouse databases. The format of the data and the availability of metadata, describing the experimental setups and in this way the quality of the data, differ strongly prohibiting analysis combining data from different resources. The Data Standards working group will develop standards for data file of toxicity related endpoints as well as approaches to document the related metadata in human- but especially also computer-readable form. These will consider achievements from earlier and on-going projects like ToxBank and eNanoMapper but also the requirements imposed by regulatory formats like REACH and SAND.

To achieve this, the working group plans to:
1. generate an on-line catalog of available data resources and review the data formats used.
2. consolidate the available formats and define recommendations.
3. communicate with experts to understand the specific requirements of each experimental technique.
4. discuss possibilities of harmonization with vendors of experimental equipment.



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________________________________________________________________________________

PD Dr. Thomas E. Exner
Theoretische Pharmazeutische Chemie & Biophysik Lehrstuhl Pharmazeutische Chemie Pharmazeutisches Institut Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Auf der Morgenstelle 8 (Haus B)
72076 Tübingen
Germany

Tel.:    +49-(0)7071-2976969
Mobil:   +49-(0)171-3807485
Fax:     +49-(0)7071-295637
E-Mail:  Thomas.Exner[at]uni-tuebingen.de

Fachbereich Chemie  und Zukunftskolleg
Universität Konstanz
78457 Konstanz
Germany

Tel.:   +49-(0)7531-882015
Fax:    +49-(0)7531-883587
E-Mail: Thomas.Exner[at]uni-konstanz.de
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