obci

The Ontology for Biomarkers of Clinical Interest (OBCI) is an OWL-formatted ontology that formally defines biomarkers for diseases, phenotypes, and effects. It is developed and maintained by the clinical-biomarkers group, the same community responsible for the GlyGen and OncoMX biomarker data resources.

OBCI organizes biomarkers both by their molecular and anatomical characteristics (for example, genetic variation biomarkers, RNA biomarkers, small molecule biomarkers, blood plasma biomarkers, and urine biomarkers) and by their clinical role. The role classifications follow the FDA-NIH BEST (Biomarkers, EndpointS, and other Tools) framework and include diagnostic, monitoring, pharmacodynamic/response, predictive, prognostic, safety, and susceptibility/risk biomarkers. These role classes are the source of the “best classification” / role vocabulary consumed by downstream biomarker knowledge graphs such as the BiomarkerKG (BKG), which links each biomarker to its best classification via a has_best_classification relationship.

The ontology is distributed in OWL format and is registered in the Bioregistry under the prefix obci. As of the OBCI 2024-10-18 release, the ontology declares the IRI http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obci.owl and is in the process of OBO Foundry submission, though that PURL is not yet resolving; the authoritative download is hosted at the Protein Information Resource.