Purdue Ontology for Pharmaceutical Engineering: Part I. Conceptual Framework

Introduction In pharmaceutical drug development and manufacturing, the amount and complexity of information of different types, ranging from raw experimental data to lab reports to complex mathematical models that needs to be stored, accessed, validated, manipulated, managed, and used for decision making is staggering. The information is often in different formats, used in different computer tools, making smooth interaction between these tools difficult. A common, explicit, and platform-independent vocabulary that is both machine accessible and human usable is needed to streamline the flow of information and knowledge generation. Methods The Purdue Ontology for Pharmaceutical Engineering (POPE) was developed to address this informatics challenge. POPE models information and knowledge and includes models of phases, material properties, molecular structures, experiments, reactions, and unit operations. Conclusion In Part 1, we describe the conceptual framework of POPE and in Part 2 its applications.