CTSOC Kickoff Meeting

Clinical and Translational Science Ontology Consortium (CTSOC)

CTSOC was established in the Spring of 2025 to advance the goals of the NIH CTSA initiative by promoting ontology-based interoperability of data within and between CTSA hubs. Barry Smith (Buffalo) and William Hogan (MCW) will serve as Co-Directors. Exploring relations between ontology and AI will be a characteristic of the CTSOC meetings down the road.

CTSOC Kickoff Meeting, September 17 2025, 10am - 4pm (EST)

Venue: Online and in the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, North Campus, University at Buffalo

Goals

● to bring together CTSOC members and to identify potential areas of collaboration

● to explore ways in which use of ontologies and of AI technology in the healthcare field might support each other mutually

The program for the meeting will be divided into blocks designed to allow those with common interests to dial-in at different times during the day.

Those wishing to participate -- from within or without the CTSA world -- should contact Barry Smith at phismith@buffalo.edu indicating their areas of interest.

Topics will include:

● Current ontology development work in CTSOC member hubs

● Creating a CTSOC portal where members can report CTS relevant ontology work, plans, and requests for assistance

● RAG, neurosymbolic and other approaches to the use of ontology in AI

● Steps towards an ontology of uses of AI in medicine

Further topic suggestions are welcome.

Draft Program

Morning Session

10:00 Introduction

10:05 Alex Diehl (UB): Applied Biomedical Ontology at UB Biomedical Informatics

10:20 Alex Bartnik (UB): MRI Acquisition and Analysis Ontology

10:35 Finn Wilson (UB) and Bill Duncan (Florida): Pain Ontology

10:50 Ava Cunningham (UB): Transforming the International Classification of Pain into an Ontology

11:00 Coffee Break

11:15 Bill Duncan: Ontology of Dental-Care Related Fear and Anxiety (ODFA)

11:30 Elena Milivinti (UB): Integrating Survey Data using ODFA

11:40 Regina Hurley (UB): The Injury Ontology

11:50 Werner Ceusters (UB): How to use ontologies to improve the usability of data at CTSA hubs

12:05 Barry Smith and William Hogan: Introduction to the Clinical and Translational Science Ontology Consortium

12:30 Lunch

Afternoon Session

13:30 Bjoern Peters (LJI San Diego): Ontology of Biomedical Investigations (OBI)

13:45 Mathias Brochhausen (UAMS): i. OOSTT: Organisation Ontology, ii. Ontology and AI in UAMS

14:00 Matt Diller (NLM): OGMS: Ontology for General Medical Science

14:15 William Hogan (MCW): Ontology of Social Resource Access

14:30 Yongqun (Oliver) He (UMich): The Vaccine Ontology (VO)

14:45 Anna Maria Masci (MDAnderson): Ontology-driven proposal for clinical AI Evaluation

15:00 John Beverley (UB): Steps towards an ontology of uses of AI in medicine

15:15 Naveed Shah (UB): How to gather data regarding AI usage in medicine across the CTSA ecosystem

15:30 John Beverley (UB): RAG, neurosymbolic and other approaches to the use of ontology in AI

15:45 TBD

16:00 Close

Participants

Alex Bartnik (UB)

Mathias Brochhausen (UAMS)

Werner Ceusters (UB)

Hunter Clark (UB)

Lindsay Cowell (UTexas Southwestern)

Giacomo De Colle (UB)

Gregory DeFranco (UB)

Alex Diehl (UB)

Matt Diller (NLM)

Federico Donato (UB)

Sebastian Duesing (UB and San Diego)

Bill Duncan (UFlorida)

Peter Elkin (UB)

Natalie Gazzo (UB)

Ali Hasanzadeh (Arizona SU)

Yongqun He (UMichigan Ann Arbor)

Olivia Hobai (UB)

William Hogan (MCW)

Regina Hurley (UB)

Jobst Landgrebe (CognoTekt)

Austin Liebers (UB)

Chi Hua Lu (UB)

Blaze Marpet (Northwestern U)

Anna Maria Masci (MD Anderson)

Elena Milivinti (UB)

Richard Ohrbach (SDM, UB)

Anuwat Pengput (UB)

Bjoern Peters (La Jolla Institute for Immunology)

Fabrício Henrique Rodrigues (UB)

Alan Ruttenberg (UB)

Richard Scheuermann (NLM Scientific Director)

Alec Sculley

Naveed Shah (UB)

Barry Smith (UB)

Adam Taylor (North Dakota SU)

Finn Wilson (UB)

Jinjun Xiong (IAD, UB)

Background information on CTSOC

The CTSOC is successor organization of the CTS Ontology Group, which has held annual meetings on a range of ontology-related topics, summarized here. Interestingly, the [1] final meeting of that group, which featured participants from NVIDIA. was devoted to the topic of Ontologies, AI and Electronic Health Records. Incorporating relations between ontology and AI will be a characteristic of CTSOC interactions down the road.

CTSOC currently involves 8 CTSA hubs:

● University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Translational Research Institute (Arkansas)

● University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute (Buffalo)

● University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute (Florida)

● University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (Houston)

● Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (Michigan)

● UC San Diego Clinical and Translational Research Institute (San Diego)

● UT Southwestern Medical Center Clinical and Translational Science Award (Dallas)

● Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee)

Barry Smith (Buffalo) and William Hogan (Medical College of Wisconsin) will serve as Co-Directors.

Goals of CTSOC

1. Apply the ontology-driven approach to critical areas of CTS where ontology coverage is thus far lacking, including: Clinical and Translational Science Ontology (CTSO), with branches:

● Clinical and Translational Science Organization Ontology (CTSOO)

● Clinical and Translational Science Impact Ontology (CTSIO)

● Social Determinants of Health Ontology (CTSSDHO)

● Public Health Ontology (CTSPHO)

● Ontology for Uses of AI in CTS (CTSAIO)

2. Explore ways in which the use of ontologies can improve the usability of data at CTSA hubs

3. Explore ways in which the use of ontologies can streamline exchange and integration of data between CTSA hubs in ways that will promote Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse (= FAIRness) of digital assets and thereby manifesting a commitment to the CTSA open science principles

4. Conduct translational science on the ways in which these ontology-based approaches compare to existing common data elements approaches in use by CTSA hubs.