Modern biotechnology is a rapidly growing field of research. Worldwide, numerous laboratories and research groups are producing huge amounts of data that they analyze with supercomputers and then use to develop computational models. There are currently few generally binding standards for the laboratory experiments and the computer-aided processing of the results. ISO intends to change this by establishing standards for the formatting, transfer, and integration of the data and models generated by different methods. Such consistent standards would be of high value for industrial, agricultural, and medical applications.

During the last meeting in Shenzhen, China, the ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC 276 Biotechnology founded a new working group for "Data processing and integration." The objective is to standardize interfaces between different data formats in order to facilitate the exchange and combination of data and computer models. With this aim, the committee will integrate “de facto” standards currently used in science. Martin Golebiewski, from the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS), Germany, has been appointed convener of the new ISO working group. He is already coordinator of the German NORMSYS-Project which focuses on standardizing models and data in systems biology. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and is carried out in collaboration with the University of Potsdam and the Berlin-based start-up business LifeGlimmer GmbH, with the aim of bringing system biologists in academia and industry together to agree on standards.

“The new ISO working group will help us to facilitate the transfer of scientific results into industrial applications by establishing international standards for data and computer models,” says Martin Golebiewski. “As the secretariat of this committee is at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN), and experts from Europe, Japan, the US and China have already joined it, this effort will strengthen the relationship between research initiatives in Germany and related efforts in other countries worldwide.” 

Interested scientists are invited to participate in the initiative through their national committees.