Workshop on Ontology of Diseases

General Information

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology will host a two-day workshop focused on the ontology of diseases on November 6-7, 2006 in Baltimore, MD.

The goals of the workshop are to promote sound, principles-based ontology construction and to raise the level of cooperation between people who work in this and related fields.

Preliminary Agenda

Monday November 6

Morning

- Introduction

- Session I: Disease Ontologies - Where We Are (Moderator: Rex Chisholm)

• Rex Chisholm: OBO Disease Ontology
• Oliver Hofmann or Winston Hide: eVOC Ontologies
• Kent Spackman: SNOMED CT

Afternoon

- Session II: What is a Disease? (Moderator: Barry Smith)

Tuesday November 7

Morning

- Session III: Problems of Disease Ontologies (Moderator: Werner Ceusters)

Afternoon

- Session IV: The Next Steps: Moderated Discussion (Moderatrix: Suzanna Lewis)

- Informal Strategy Session

(The workshop will start on Monday November 6 at 9 am and will end on Tuesday November 7 at 6 pm.)

Participation

Requests for participation are welcome. Please send a brief statement of your expertise, and of the reasons for your interest in the topic of disease ontology, to Fabian Neuhaus.

Venue

Inn at the Colonnade 4 West University Parkway Baltimore, Maryland 21218 Telephone: +1 410 235 5400 Fax: +1 410 235 5572

The Inn at the Colonnade is located across from Johns Hopkins University less than four miles from Baltimore's CBD and historic Inner Harbor, and only 20 minutes from BWI International Airport.

A block of rooms have been reserved for those Workshop participants and attendees wishing to stay at the Inn at the Colonnade. Reservations may be made by calling 1-800-222-TREE. When making reservations, workshop participants and attendees are asked to identify themselves as being a member of the NCBO group. All reservations must be guaranteed for late arrival by charging to a major credit card. Workshop participants and attendees are encouraged to make room reservations no later than 10/15/06. After 10/15/06, the Inn at the Colonnade may offer unused rooms held in the NCBO block to other customers. Reservations requested by Workshop participants and attendees after 10/15/06 will be accepted by the Inn at the Colonnade based upon availability and prevailing rates.

Links and Literature

The workshop is associated with FOIS 2006 and KRMed 2006.

The OBO disease ontology.

The eVOC ontologies.

Amarnath Gupta et alia: Towards a formalization of disease-specific ontologies for neuroinformatics.

The Physiome Project.