Microbiology for the CTSA: Ontological Approaches

Sixth Annual Workshop of the Clinical and Translational Science Ontology Group

Announcement

The Clinical and Translational Science Ontology Group (CTSOG) invites you to join us this October in Ann Arbor, Michigan to discuss the state of the art in ontologies and terminologies towards standardized data and metadata and data integration in various areas of clinical and translational microbiology. Example areas of discussion include microbiomes, host-microbiome interactions, microbial pathogens (e.g., bacteria, viruses, and parasites), infectious diseases, host immunity, vaccines and drugs treating infectious diseases, and vaccine and drug adverse events and safety. We will focus on how ontologies can be developed and used to support clinical and translational microbiology data recording, standardization, and analysis.

Our workshop will include an education session that will be used to discuss: What are critical needs in microbiology that ontology can help to address? What do microbiologists need to know to use and develop ontologies? What experience do microbiologists need to acquire to use and develop ontologies? What do ontologists need to know to develop ontologies with and for microbiologists? How to generate use cases to demonstrate the usage of ontology in microbiology?

Organizers

Yongqun “Oliver” He (Ann Arbor), Amanda Hicks (Gainesville)

Sponsor

The Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), a University of Michigan institute funded by the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA). We are grateful also to the MICHR for sponsoring $3000 for supporting two keynote speakers' attendance at the meeting. See here (need a link) for details.

Date

October XXXXXX, 2017

Venue

Insert hotel / venue information here

Schedule Day 1: October XXXX

Wednesday Morning

8:00am Registration and Breakfast

8:45am XXXX Welcoming remarks

9:00am

10:30am Break

11:00am

12:00: Lunch

Wednesday - Afternoon

1:00pm

3:00pm Break

3:30pm

4:15pm Keynote address 1

6:30pm Dinner

Schedule Day 2: October XXXXX

Thursday - Morning

8:00am Registration and Breakfast

8:30am Keynote address 2

10:00am Break

10:30am

12:00 Lunch

Thursday - Afternoon

1:00pm

2:00pm Wrap-up session

4:00pm Close

Rationale

The CTSA Program has always emphasized the need for data standards to promote sharing and comparison of data across the CTSA Consortium and beyond. Yet creation and adoption of such standards is still painfully slow. Urgent action remains necessary. History shows the high value of standard terms, definitions, and symbols (i.e. ontology) to science. But the creation and adoption of such standards often takes decades. Translational science requires a consistent set of standard ontologies spanning all scales, from molecule to organism to population. In this year's meeting we focus on resources for describing data at the scale of micro-organisms XXX

This workshop will convene stakeholders interested in identifying ways to XXX

Goals

The Clinical and Translational Science Ontology Group was established in 2012 to leverage the use of common ontologies to support different aspects of information-driven clinical and translational research. The focus of this meeting is to explore new and existing uses of common ontologies to support creation, sharing, and analysis of clinical data.

Like its predecessors in the series, this meeting is designed to bring together clinical and translational scientists from across the CTSA Consortium who are interested in using ontologies to promote discoverability and interoperability of biomedical data.

Persons interested in attending or in presenting at the meeting should write to [mailto:].

Sponsor

Principal sponsor:

We are grateful also to the Buffalo Clinical and Translational Research Center for sponsoring four scholarships of $500 to early career researchers for attendance at the meeting. See here for details.

Participants will include

Amanda Hicks (Health Outcomes and Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL)

Yongqun (Oliver) He (University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI)

William Hogan (Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL)

Richard Scheuermann (J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, CA)

Chris Stoeckert (University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA)

Barry Smith (National Center for Ontological Research, University at Buffalo, Baffalo, NY)

Jianfeng Wu (School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI)