FOR
MORE INFORMATION:
Brian
Gilman Krista
Miller
Co-Chair,
Technical Architecture Working Group Co-Chair, Technical Architecture
Working Group I3C
(617)
252-1069 (757)
221-0550
gilmanb@genome.wi.mit.edu krista.miller@incogen.com
GLOBAL BIOTECH AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LEADERS FORM
CONSORTIUM TO DEMONSTRATE INTEROPERABILITY FOR LIFE SCIENCES
AVAKI, IBM, INCOGEN, LabBook,
Oracle, Sun Microsystems, TurboGenomics and the
Whitehead Institute at MIT Demonstrate Advances Toward
Multi-Vendor Interoperability
TORONTO, CANADA,
BIO 2002 Conference, June 9, 2001 – The Technical Architecture Working Group (TechArch) of the Interoperable Informatics Infrastructure
Consortium (I3C), an international consortium of over 70 life science and
information technology organizations, today unveiled their latest developments
at the BIO (Biotechnology Industry Organization) 2002 Conference. TechArch presented
a demonstration that uses XML, BSML, SOAP, and Java™ along with a newly
submitted protocol, LSID, to illustrate how data from multiple sources in
numerous proprietary data formats can be connected via common protocols to
accelerate discovery.
For the BIO 2001 conference, TechArch created a “rough draft” of interoperability
through a low-level XML representation of sequence and related
information. For BIO 2002, the group
built the demonstration on BSML (Bioinformatics Sequence Markup Language) from LabBook, a more robust data format, and also adopted the
SOAP standard for messaging endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). This style of messaging allows
language- and platform-independent communications among the various vendors. Additionally, the group has integrated use of
the Life Science Identifier (LSID), a newly submitted protocol for uniquely
identifying objects and data elements in a distributed, federated fashion,
adapted from AVAKI’s grid naming architecture and adapted for the needs of life
science applications.
The demonstration was coordinated
by INCOGEN as part of their NIST ATP (National Institute of Standards and
Technology Advanced Technology Program) grant and the Whitehead Institute. Extensive contributions were made by AVAKI,
IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and TurboGenomics.
The TechArch
group and the I3C encourage and validate common protocols and interoperable
technologies (specifications) for data exchange and knowledge management for
the life sciences community. This
provides the community with peer-validated solutions that can be leveraged,
extended or uniquely customized toward the goal of accelerated discovery and
development. Another task of TechArch is to experiment with existing standards in the IT
world, many recommended by the W3C, and to find the feasibility of these
technologies within the life science industry.
“It’s a very exciting time to be
part of both the IT and life science communities,” said Krista Miller, Director
of Software Development at INCOGEN and co-chair of TechArch. “The technologies are still very young, and
it’s exhilarating to be involved in the evolution and to help solve some of the
problems common to so many researchers, bioinformaticists and developers. The enthusiasm and effectiveness of the participants
is tremendous.”
“As
a bioinformatician I am faced with the lack of
interoperable solutions in this domain on a daily basis,” said Brian Gilman,
Group Leader of the Medical & Population Genetics Department at the
Whitehead Institute and co-chair of TechArch. “While many of the challenges in
bioinformatics have been alleviated by efforts led by the open-bio community and others like it,
we still face many hurdles to providing interoperable solutions to the
biologist. The I3C has allowed me to help solve our interoperability problem by
collaborating with technically gifted and forward looking colleagues who
understand the problems in the life sciences domain.”
More information
about the TechArch, future milestones, and other
working groups within the I3C can be found at www.i3c.org.