Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is build in a collaborative, international effort and will serve as a resource for annotating biomedical investigations, including the study design, protocols and instrumentation used, the data generated and the types of analysis performed on the data. This ontology arose from the Functional Genomics Investigation Ontology (FuGO) and will contain both terms that are common to all biomedical investigations, including functional genomics investigations and those that are more domain specific.

Open in the Ontology Lookup Service (OLS)


collection of specimens [OBI_0002076]

A material entity that has two or more specimens as its parts.

organism [OBI_0100026]

Category=external. [object; organismal entity; organism]

planned process [OBI_0000011]

A processual entity that realizes a plan which is the concretization of a plan specification.

population [OBI_0000181]

a population is a collection of individuals from the same taxonomic class living, counted or sampled at a particular site or in a particular area

reagent role [OBI_0000086]

[reagent role]

specimen [OBI_0100051]

A material entity that has the specimen role.

specimen collection objective [OBI_0000684]

A objective specification to obtain a material entity for potential use as an input during an investigation.

specimen collection process [OBI_0000659]

A planned process with the objective of collecting a specimen.

specimen role [OBI_0000112]

a role borne by a material entity that is gained during a specimen collection process and that can be realized by use of the specimen in an investigation


Last modified January 5, 2022: Adding OBI (d1670a9)