Biobanks are a critical resource for translational science. However, they often suffer from a lack of semantics in their ability to disseminate data and make it readily queryable. The OBO Foundry provides ontologies that are relevant to representing the structure and function of biobanks. The workshop organizers developed an ontology for biobanking based on the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI), an OBO Foundry ontology, aiming to support consistent annotation of biobank resources and provide semantics to biobank resources. The workshop focuses on problems and requirements of an ontology for biobanking, as well as potential solutions. Following topics are covered: • • •
Information models describing biobanks, their strengths, weaknesses, and competency criteria Reports of biobank related ontologies
Case studies of applying ontologies to biobanks The biobank workshop provides a platform to people from the biobank world who are interested in bringing ontologies into this effort. Over 30 people attended the workshop and initiated the potential collaboration following the workshop.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank the keynote speaker, Dave Parrish, who gave an excellent talk on The Bio-Specimen Knowledge Bank. We would also like to thank the ICBO organizers for hosting the workshop.