Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI)

Overview

OBI is an OBO Foundry ontology covering the full lifecycle of biomedical experiments: study design, protocols, instruments, assays, data collection, and conclusions. It provides a machine-readable vocabulary for formally describing how a scientific investigation was conducted — the experimental design, what was measured with what instrument, how samples were collected, and what statistical methods were applied.

Key OBI Concepts

• OBI:0000070 — assay (measurement process)
• OBI:0000272 — protocol
• OBI:0100026 — organism (subject in a study)
• OBI:0000067 — data transformation
• OBI:0000299 — datum (a piece of data)

Connections

• Part of: OBO Foundry
• Integrates with: BIDS (study-level protocol metadata extensions)

Resources

• https://obi-ontology.org
• https://obofoundry.org/ontology/obi.html
• https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ols/ontologies/obi (EBI Ontology Lookup Service)