*See also the "related presentation":http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3145/version/1*

We present an infrastructure that leverages synergistic reporting standards and ontologies^1,2,3,4,5^ to create a common structured representation and storage mechanism for experimental metadata from biological and biomedical investigations ranging from simple single-assay studies to complex, methodologically diverse multi-assay studies. 

The infrastructure’s components include: a data capture and editing tool (_ISAcreator_); validator (_ISAvalidator_); database (_BioInvestigation Index_); and converter (_ISAconverter_); and a BioConductor analysis package (_R-ISApackage_). The components are designed for local installation, and can work independently, or as unified system.

View the "public instance":http://www.ebi.ac.uk/bioinvindex running at EBI and/or "download the components":http://isatab.sf.net for your local use.

*References*
1. Taylor CF, Field D, Sansone SA,… Rocca-Serra P et al. (2008) The MIBBI Project. _Nature Biotechnology_ Aug;26(8):889-896. "http://www.mibbi.org":http://www.mibbi.org

2. Smith B, Ashburner M, Rosse C,… Rocca-Serra P, …Sansone SA et al. (2007) The OBO Foundry. _Nature Biotechnology_ Nov;25(11):1251-5. "http://www.obofoundry.org":http://www.obofoundry.org

3. Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) "http://obi-ontology.org":http://obi-ontology.org 

4. Sansone SA, Rocca-Serra P, Brandizi M,… Taylor CF et al. (2008) The First MGED RSBI (ISA-TAB) Workshop. _OMICS_. Jun;12(2):143-9. "http://isatab.sf.net":http://isatab.sf.net

5. Jones AR, Miller M, Aebersold R,… Sansone SA et al. (2007) The Functional Genomics Experiment model (FuGE). _Nature Biotechnology_ Oct;25(10):1127-1133. "http://fuge.sf.net":http://fuge.sf.ne
