caMOD 2.3 released - contains customization for zebrafish entries

The National Cancer Institute's Center for Biomedical Informatics and
Information Technology is proud to announce the release of version 2.3
of the Cancer Models Database (caMOD). The new version was released on
October 30th, 2007.

caMOD 2.3 can be accessed at [Only registered users see links. ]

The cancer models database (caMOD) is a web-based resource that
provides information about animal models for human cancer to the
public research community.

caMOD provides the following key capabilities to its users:
- Data Submission--Data in caMOD are extracted from the public
scientific literature by curators and verified by the scientists who
generated or worked with the models, or they are directly submitted by
scientists.

- Data Search--Users can retrieve information about the making of
models, their genetic descriptions, histopathology, derived cell
lines, associated images, carcinogenic interventions, microarray data,
and therapeutic trials in which the models were used. caMOD provides
links to PubMed for associated publications and other resources such
as model repositories, detailed information about altered gene,
pathway affected, and information about human clinical trials that
utilize the same compounds as the pre-clinical trials in the animal
models.

- System Function Administration--The Admin function provides services
for user registration, review of submitted models and database
management.

No user account is required to query the database.

With this version, caMOD starts customizing the application for models
in a variety of species beyond mouse models. caMOD 2.3 supports the
submission of zebrafish and rat models. Depending on the selected
species, the application uses species-specific vocabularies for
anatomy and disease on the Histopathology, Cell Lines, Graft, and
Associated Expression pages. Links to the Zebrafish Model Organism
Database ([Only registered users see links. ]) and to the Rat Genome Database (http://
rgd.mcw.edu/) are provided on the Genetic Description pages and allow
the user to retrieve information about the modified alleles. Links to
the above mentioned resources have also been added to the publication
listings. Data about other species can be submitted to caMOD, but no
vocabularies for anatomical or diagnostic terms are provided at this
time. The Search pages now utilize the species-specific vocabularies.
The selection drop down list of model species on the Search pages is
created dynamically depending on which models have been approved
during the review process.

caMOD 2.3 further expands the use of vocabularies provided by NCI
Thesaurus ([Only registered users see links. ]) by introducing the staining
method vocabulary to the Image portion of the application.

Acknowledgements
The rat vocabularies were retrieved from RENI. We would like to thank
the members of the Rat Nomenclature Reconciliation Subcommittee for
their support and advice.
The zebrafish vocabularies were provided by ZFIN, the Zebrafish Model
Organism Database, and rendered from bioontology.org.

RENI: [Only registered users see links. ]
ZFIN: [Only registered users see links. ]
Bioontology: [Only registered users see links. ]

Our special thank you goes to Dr. Hatem Sabaawy who served as the
domain expert on zebrafish models.
We would also like to thank the NCI CBIIT Enterprise Vocabulary
Systems team for their work in converting and importing the
vocabularies.


The caMOD Team