BioPAX

http://www.biopax.org/


BioPAX is a collaborative effort to create a data exchange format for biological pathway data. 

The goal of the BioPAX group is to develop a common exchange format for biological pathways data.

The BioPAX project began at the Fourth BioPathways Consortium Meeting, a satellite of the ISMB'02 Conference held in Edmonton, Canada in August 2002. It was decided that a pathway exchange format would facilitate sharing of pathway information between databases and users and would be a good first step to building an open source pathway information resource. The project got underway in early October 2002 when Chris Hogue (BIND, UToronto), Peter Karp (BioCyc, SRI), and Chris Sander (MSKCC) organized the BioPAX work group.

It was decided to keep the group small at first, and to expand it gradually. The initial focus of the group was the exchange of chemical compound information; and initial group members were selected with this in mind.

The first BioPAX meeting was held on November 6, 2002 in New York City. During this meeting the group worked to identify the steps needed to arrive at a viable data exchange format. They also reviewed the work of other relevant groups, developed a timeline for inclusion of additional members to the BioPAX group, and began working on the problem of exchanging chemical compound information, followed by metabolic pathway representation.