Friends, (01)
As many of you know, part of the Roadmap initiative of the National
Institutes of Health (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/) includes major
support for biomedical computation through, among other mechanisms,
the creation of National Centers for Biomedical Computing (http://
www.bisti.nih.gov/ncbc/index.cfm). The NIH just announced the three
new National Centers to be created this year, and one of them will be
a "National Center for Biomedical Ontology" (see see http://
www.bioontology.org). (02)
The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is being founded by a
consortium that brings together the Protégé group at Stanford, the
informatics team of the Gene Ontology Consortium centered at
Berkeley, the informatics group at the Mayo Clinic responsible for
the Common Terminology Services standard promoted by HL7, the
ontology group in the Department of Philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo, and
several other collaborating centers. Together, we will develop new
technology for managing libraries of biomedical ontologies, for
indexing, aligning, and annotating biomedical ontologies, and for
facilitating peer review of online knowledge resources in both
clinical medicine and the life sciences. We also plan to develop
technology to help biologists to use ontologies, primarily in the
area of annotating large data sets. We are planning outreach
activities to help biomedical scientists in the development and
refinement of ontologies in particular domains. (03)
The NIH roadmap initiative includes set-aside funds to encourage
investigators at other institutions to collaborate with the National
Centers for Biomedical Computation (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/
guide/pa-files/PAR-05-063.html). This grant mechanism might provide
a very tangible way to fund projects of importance to Ontolog. (04)
The National Center for Biomedical Ontology, with its primary
administrative site at Stanford, involves several investigators who
also are involved in the National Center for Ontological Research
(http://ncor.us), which has previously been announced on this forum.
The two Centers have distinct missions, but should be extremely
synergistic. The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is an NIH-
funded entity with the primary aim of creating specific technologies
to promote the management and application of ontologies in
biomedicine. The National Center for Ontological Research is an
umbrella organization that will be seeking funding from a variety of
sources to promote the application of ontologies in a wide range of
disciplines and to offer educational programs to encourage sound
principles of ontology design. (05)
We are extremely excited that the NIH has recognized the importance
of ontologies in biomedical research through the funding of our new
Center. It makes us feel that ontologies are almost becoming
mainstream! (06)
Mark_________________________________________________________________
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