BioBabel: Enhanced interoperability of biological databases by standardisation of biochemical terminology and introduction of a shared ontology

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 01.0155

Key words (English)

Databases ENZYME; taxonomy; strain information; tissue information;
Life Sciences; Scientific Research

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: QLRI-CT_2001-00981

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.1.9 Support for research infrastructures

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Coordinator: EMBL Cambridge (UK)

Abstract (English)

The BioBabel project will combine the different strengths of European groups working on various aspects of standardisation of biochemical terminology in databases to develop and implement controlled vocabulary and a common ontology to describe biological attributes in biological databases. This will allow users to do complex queries across databases in a much simpler way by enhancing database interoperability, The BioBabel partners will introduce the standardised tenninology in all the databases they produce and maintain. Accessing these then highly interoperable sequence databases, genomic databases, protein motif databases, enzyme databases and nomenclature databases will allow researchers to infer knowledge about the structure and function of genes and proteins and to relate these to the existing corpus of scientific knowledge.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 01.0155