Finding Our Way through Phenotypes

Andrew R. Deans*, Suzanna E. Lewis, Eva Huala, Salvatore S. Anzaldo, Michael Ashburner, James P. Balhoff, David C. Blackburn, Judith A. Blake, J. Gordon Burleigh, Bruno Chanet, Laurel D. Cooper, Melanie Courtot, Sandor Csoesz, Hong Cui, Wasila Dahdul, Sandip Das, T. Alexander Dececchi, Agnes Dettai, Rui Diogo, Robert E. DruzinskyMichel Dumontier, Nico M. Franz, Frank Friedrich, George V. Gkouto, Melissa Haendel, Luke J. Harmon, Terry F. Hayamizu, Yongqun He, Heather M. Hines, Nizar Ibrahim, Laura M. Jackson, Pankaj Jaiswal, Christina James-Zorn, Sebastian Koehler, Guillaume Lecointre, Hilmar Lapp, Carolyn J. Lawrence, Nicolas Le Novere, John G. Lundberg, James Macklin, Austin R. Mast, Peter E. Midford, Istvan Miko, Christopher J. Mungall, Anika Oellrich, David Osumi-Sutherland, Helen Parkinson, Martin J. Ramirez, Stefan Richter, Peter N. Robinson, Alan Ruttenberg, Katja S. Schulz, Erik Segerdell, Katja C. Seltmann, Michael J. Sharkey, Aaron D. Smith, Barry Smith, Chelsea D. Specht, R. Burke Squires, Robert W. Thacker, Anne Thessen, Jose Fernandez-Triana, Mauno Vihinen, Peter D. Vize, Lars Vogt, Christine E. Wall, Ramona L. Walls, Monte Westerfeld, Robert A. Wharton, Christian S. Wirkner, James B. Woolley, Matthew J. Yoder, Aaron M. Zorn, Paula M. Mabee

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1002033
JournalPlos Biology
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2015
Externally publishedYes

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