Plant Ontology and Ontology of Biomedical Investigations Admitted to OBO Foundry

The OBO Foundry has announced that it has admitted two additional ontologies to its membership.  Specifically, the Ontology of Biomedical Investigations (OBI) and the Plant Ontology (PO) met the standards of the OBO Foundry Editorial Working Group.  This move brings the number of Foundry ontologies to ten:

1. chemical entities of biological interest
2. biological process (gene ontology)
3. cellular component (gene ontology)
4. molecular function (gene ontology)
5. protein ontology 
6. phenotypic quality
7. xenopus anatomy and development
8. zebrafish anatomy and development
9. plant ontology
10. ontology of biomedical investigations

Per the announcement, ...OBI and PO have recently been reviewed by the OBO Foundry Editorial

Working Group, and reviewers found that they performed well when measured against accepted OBO Foundry Principles... Consequently, the Editorial WG recommended that PO and OBI be given full

member status as OBO Foundry Ontologies. This decision was ratified by the OBO Foundry Operations Committee.

Progress towards high-quality, peer-reviewed ontologies deemed acceptable for use in scientific and other endeavors thereby has taken a strong step forward.