Welcome to the Biomedical Data Translator - Technical Documentation Site

The vision of the Biomedical Data Translator (“Translator”) program is to accelerate translational science “through an informatics platform that enables interrogation of relationships across the full spectrum of data types” (Austin et al. 2019, BDTC 2019a, BDTC 2019b, Fecho et al. 2022, other references). The goal is to build the infrastructure required to support and facilitate data-driven translational research on a large scale. The fundamental aim is to integrate as many datasets as possible, using a ‘knowledge graph’–based architecture, and allow them to be cross-queried and reasoned over by translational researchers. A fundamental tenet of the Translator program is open data, including open (de-identified) patient data, and open team science. Learn more….

This site hosts the official technical documentation for Translator. Key sections of the documentation are:

• About the Biomedical Data Translator: general information about the Biomedical Data Translator (“Translator”) project.
• Knowledge Graphs: Knowledge Graphs - the core scientific principle behind Translator.
• Translator Architecture: overview of the Translator knowledge integration platform.
• Software Development Guide: guidelines for Translator software development, including tutorials.
• System Deployment Guide: guidelines for Translator systems administration, including continuous integration testing, production deployment and monitoring.
• Frequently Asked Questions

Licensing

Translator is intended to evolve into a global public good through open source and access licensing.

In this spirit, this document repository is published under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal License

Note, however, that the system components developed by different Translator teams may have other distinct specific licensing.

References

1. Austin CP, Colvis, CM, Southall NT. Deconstructing the Translational Tower of Babel. Clin Transl Sci, 2019;12(2):85. doi:10.1111/cts.12595. PMID:30412342.
2. The Biomedical Data Translator Consortium. Toward a Universal Biomedical Data Translator. Clin Transl Sci, 2019a. doi:10.1111/cts.12591. PMID:30412337.
3. The Biomedical Data Translator Consortium. The Biomedical Data Translator program: conception, culture, and community. Clin Transl Sci, 2019b. doi:10.1111/cts.12592. PMID:30412340.
4. Fecho K, Thessen AE, Baranzini SE, et al. and The Biomedical Data Translator Consortium. Progress toward a Universal Biomedical Data Translator. Clin Transl Sci, 2022 May 25. doi:10.1111/cts.13301. PMID:35611543.
5. Unni DR, Moxon SAT, Bada M, et al. and the Biomedical Data Translator Consortium. Biolink Model: a universal schema for knowledge graphs in clinical, biomedical, and translational science. Clin Transl Sci, 2022 June 6. doi:10.1111/cts.13302.