# A pattern-driven approach to biomedical ontology engineering

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0465 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.0465/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2013.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [A Survey of Syntactic Modelling Structures in Biomedical Ontologies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14119/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Developing ontologies can be expensive, time-consuming, as well as difficult to develop and maintain. This is especially true for more expressive and/or larger ontologies. Some ontologies are, however, relatively repetitive, reusing design patterns; building these with both generic and bespoke patterns should reduce duplication and increase regularity which in turn should impact on the cost of development. Here we report on the usage of patterns applied to two biomedical ontologies: firstly a novel ontology for karyotypes which has been built ground-up using a pattern based approach; and, secondly, our initial refactoring of the SIO ontology to make explicit use of patterns at development time. To enable this, we use the Tawny-OWL library which enables full-programmatic development of ontologies. We show how this approach can generate large numbers of classes from much simpler data structures which is highly beneficial within biomedical ontology engineering.