#Mechanistic Toxicology(MechTox) Ontology

The purpose of the mechanistic toxicology ontology is to build a framework for capturing knowledge of toxicity. Predictive toxicology and risk assessment depend on accurate models developed from structured information. However, most knowledge is represented as text, and as such has limited value for automatically building models with explanatory power. Formal knowledge representation provides a logical framework to capture knowledge as structured information. All aspects from chemical structure to biological activity, toxicity mechanisms, and risk assessment can be captured and leveraged for interpretation. The Semantic Web is a set of standards to formally represent knowledge and publish, share, link, query, and reuse knowledge using core Internet technologies. Representation of knowledge is accomplished through formal languages. The Web Ontology Language, OWL, is a knowledge representation language based on description logics. Knowledge encoded using OWL is amenable to automated reasoning allowing new knowledge to be discovered through inferencing of integrated knowledge. A knowledge base developed using OWL offers knowledge consistency checking, subsumption inferences, data classification, and question answering.

##Examples##

Examples of design patterns are avaiable in the ./examples directory. These design patterns show a general example and list specific mechanisms of action of where they are used.

##Files##

• MechTox.owl
• mechtox_mapping.nt