Proceedings of a Sickle Cell Disease Ontology workshop - Towards the first comprehensive ontology for Sickle Cell Disease

Nicola Mulder (1) , Victoria Nembaware (1) , Adekunle Adekile (2) , Kofi A Anie (3) , Baba Inusa (4) , Biobele Brown (5) , Andrew Campbell (6) , Furahini Chinenere (7) , Catherine Chunda-Liyoka (8, 9) , Vimal K Derebail (10) , Amy Geard (1) , Kais Ghedira (11) , Carol M Hamilton (12) , Neil A Hanchard (13) , Melissa Haendel (14) , Wayne Huggins (12) , Muntaser E Ibrahim (15) , Simon Jupp (16) , Karen Kengne Kamga (17) , Jennifer Knight-Madden (18) , Philomène Lopez-Sall (19) , Mamana Mbiyavanga (1) , Deogratias Munube (20) , Damian Nirenberg (13) , Obiageli Nnodu (21) , Solomon Fiifi Ofori-Acquah (22) , Kwaku Ohene-Frempong (23) , Kenneth Babu Opap (1) , Sumir Panji (1) , Miriam Park (24) , Gift Pule (1) , Charmaine Royal (25) , Raphael Sangeda (7) , Bamidele Tayo (26) , Marsha Treadwell (27) , Léon Tshilolo (28) , Ambroise Wonkam (1)

1 University of Cape Town
2 Kuwait University
3 Imperial College London
4 Evelina London Children's Hospital
5 University of Ibadan
6 University of Michigan [Ann Arbor]
7 UDSM - University of Dar es Salaam
8 UTH - University Teaching Hospital [Lusaka]
9 UNZA - University of Zambia [Lusaka]
10 UNC - University of North Carolina [Chapel Hill]
11 LR11IPT06 - Laboratoire de Parasitologie Médicale, Biotechnologies et Biomolécules
12 RTI International - Research Triangle Institute International
13 BCM - Baylor College of Medicine
14 OHSU - Oregon Health and Science University [Portland]
15 University of Khartoum
16 EMBL-EBI - European Bioinformatics Institute [Hinxton]
17 University of Yaoundé [Cameroun]
18 The University of the West Indies
19 UCAD - Université Cheikh Anta Diop [Dakar, Sénégal]
20 CHS - Makerere University College of Health Science [Kampala]
21 University of Abuja
22 PITT - University of Pittsburgh
23 CHOP - Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
24 USP - Universidade de São Paulo = University of São Paulo
25 Duke University [Durham]
26 Loyola University [Chicago]
27 UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland
28 CEFA-MONKOLE - Centre de formation et d’appui sanitaire de Monkole

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a debilitating single gene disorder caused by a single point mutation that results in physical deformation (i.e. sickling) of erythrocytes at reduced oxygen tensions. Up to 75% of SCD in newborns world-wide occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, where neonatal and childhood mortality from sickle cell related complications is high. While SCD research across the globe is tackling the disease on multiple fronts, advances have yet to significantly impact on the health and quality of life of SCD patients, due to lack of coordination of these disparate efforts. Ensuring data across studies is directly comparable through standardization is a necessary step towards realizing this goal. Such a standardization requires the development and implementation of a disease-specific ontology for SCD that is applicable globally. Ontology development is best achieved by bringing together experts in the domain to contribute their knowledge. The SCD community and H3ABioNet members joined forces at a recent SCD Ontology workshop to develop an ontology covering aspects of SCD under the classes: phenotype, diagnostics, therapeutics, quality of life, disease modifiers and disease stage. The aim of the workshop was for participants to contribute their expertise to development of the structure and contents of the SCD ontology. Here we describe the proceedings of the Sickle Cell Disease Ontology Workshop held in Cape Town South Africa in February 2016 and its outcomes. The objective of the workshop was to bring together experts in SCD from around the world to contribute their expertise to the development of various aspects of the SCD ontology.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Nicola Mulder, Victoria Nembaware, Adekunle Adekile, Kofi A Anie, Baba Inusa, et al.. Proceedings of a Sickle Cell Disease Ontology workshop - Towards the first comprehensive ontology for Sickle Cell Disease. Applied & Translational Genomics, 2016, 9, pp.23-29. ⟨10.1016/j.atg.2016.03.005⟩. ⟨pasteur-02012176⟩