The NCI Semantic Infrastructure (SI) meets many of the key challenges related to aggregating, sharing, and analyzing biomedical data. SI content, tools, and procedures promote accurate, shared, and computable data standards, descriptions and representation. Multisite clinical trials, for example, use the NCI SI to agree on the meaning of the multiple types of data they collect. Potential reuse of the large volume of cancer clinical-trial data is also a significant driver behind the need for a robust SI. The scale and complexity of biomedical questions lead to a need, addressed by the SI, to share the understanding of data across disciplines.
The major components of the NCI’s current SI are NCI Enterprise Vocabulary Services (EVS) for terminology creation, access and mappings; and the Cancer Data Standards Repository (caDSR) for managing data elements, metadata and case report forms. EVS and caDSR have become essential to many aspects of basic, translational, and clinical research, not just in cancer, but also in the broader biomedical research community. SI collaborative projects such as those with the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) support broader transparency among data collected by various agencies at no additional cost to the NCI.
Vocabulary Services and Tools
Metadata Services and Tools
