caMOD 2.3 is released

Version 2.3 of the Cancer Models Database (caMOD) was released on October 30th, 2007.

caMOD 2.3 can be accessed at http://cancermodels.nci.nih.gov/

With this version, caMOD starts customizing the application for models in a variety of species beyond mouse models. caMOD 2.3 supports the submission of zebrafish and rat models. Depending on the selected species, the application uses species-specific vocabularies for anatomy and disease on the Histopatholoy, Cell Lines, Graft, and Associated Expression pages. Links to the Zebrafish Model Organism Database (http://www.zfin.org) and to the Rat Genome Database (http://rgd.mcw.edu/) are provided on the Genetic Description pages and allow the user to retrieve information about the modified alleles. Links to the above mentioned resources have also been added to the publication listings. Data about other species can be submitted to caMOD, but no vocabularies for anatomical or diagnostic terms are provided at this time. The Search pages now utilize the species-specific vocabularies. The selection drop down list of model species on the Search pages is created dynamically depending on which models have been approved during the review process.

caMOD 2.3 further expands the use of vocabularies provided by NCI Thesaurus (http://nciterms.nci.nih.gov) by introducing the staining method vocabulary to the Image portion of the application.

Acknowledgements

The rat vocabularies were retrieved from RENI. We would like to thank the members of the Rat Nomenclature Reconciliation Subcommittee for their support and advice.

The zebrafish vocabularies were provided by ZFIN, the Zebrafish Model Organism Database, and rendered from bioontology.org.

RENI: http://www.item.fraunhofer.de/reni/rat_nomenclature/index.htm
ZFIN:http://www.zfin.org
Bioontology: http://www.bioontology.org

Our special thank you goes to Dr. Hatem Sabaawy who served as the domain expert on zebrafish models.

We would also like to thank the NCI CBIIT Enterprise Vocabulary Systems team for their work in converting and importing the vocabularies.

- The caMOD Team