Abstract
Clinical research includes a wide range of study designs from focused observational studies to complex interventional studies with multiple study arms, treatment and assessment events, and specimen procurement procedures. Participant characteristics from case report forms need to be integrated with molecular characteristics from mechanistic experiments on procured specimens. In order to capture and manage this diverse array of data, we have developed the Ontology-Based eXtensible data model (OBX) to serve as a framework for clinical research data in the Immunology Database and Analysis Portal (ImmPort). By designing OBX around the logical structure of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI), we have found that a relatively simple conceptual model can represent the relatively complex domain of clinical research. In addition, the common framework provided by BFO makes it straightforward to develop data dictionaries based on reference and application ontologies from the OBO Foundry.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 48-58 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Biomedical Informatics |
Volume | 44 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2011 |
Keywords
- Assay
- Biomaterial transformation
- Clinical trials
- Conceptual model
- Data transformation
- Ontology
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health Informatics
- Computer Science Applications